I have spent a lot of time talking about Woody Allen films on this blog and looking at his worldview. He has a hopeless, meaningless, nihilistic worldview that believes we are going to turn to dust and there is no afterlife. Even though he has this view he has taken the opportunity to look at the weaknesses of his own secular view. I salute him for doing that. That is why I have returned to his work over and over and presented my own Christian worldview as an alternative.
San Francisco has been good to Woody Allen, from his 1969 directing debut with “Take the Money and Run” to his lead turn in 1972′s “Play It Again, Sam,” and a long-overdue return visit provides just the shot of artistic adrenaline he needs in “Blue Jasmine.” It doesn’t hurt that this serious-minded but ruefully funny work is centered around a mesmerizing performance by Cate Blanchett as a neurotic Allen heroine for the ages, a desperate New York socialite who heads West after losing her husband and their ill-gotten fortune. Probing the allure of romantic fulfillment and upward mobility with rigor, emotional generosity and a pleasing sense of dramatic balance, this Sony Classics release won’t do “Midnight in Paris”-sized numbers, but solid critical response should pull in more than just the Woodman faithful.
Following the frivolities of “Midnight in Paris” and “To Rome With Love,” Allen makes an invigorating return to American soil with a meaty, fully realized drama that cleverly functions as both an update of “A Streetcar Named Desire” and a satire on One Percent excess. And while “Blue Jasmine” is rather less idyllic than the writer-director’s previous creative high point, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” it superficially recalls that 2008 comedy in charting the fortunes of two women, a blonde and a brunette, pursuing their very different goals in life. Yet Blanchett’s performance is so dominant in terms of screentime and emotional impact that the film succeeds as not only a virtuoso ensemble piece, but also an unflinchingly intimate study of the character in the title.
The fact that Jasmine sometimes still uses her birth name, Jeanette, provides an early clue that this is a woman with a talent for self-invention — someone who can’t help but delude herself and others, and who doesn’t mind turning a blind eye to those inconvenient realities that might threaten her life of privilege. That privilege has been yanked away from Jasmine as she arrives in San Francisco, evidently broke and single, and moves in with her sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins).
That the girls were adopted from different sets of biological parents explains their lack of resemblance, in looks and temperament. While laid-back, free-spirited Ginger works at a supermarket, has two rowdy kids from a previous marriage, and is engaged to a macho, greasy-haired tough named Chili (Bobby Cannavale), Jasmine is clearly made of classier stuff, or so she thinks. Regular flashbacks reveal her life of luxury in the Hamptons with her businessman husband, Hal (Alec Baldwin), who turned out to be as chronically unfaithful to her as he was to his investors. Among the many victims of his Madoff-like schemes were Ginger and her then-husband, Augie (actor-comedian Andrew Dice Clay), who made the mistake of entrusting Hal with $200,000 in lottery winnings.
The contrast between past and present begins to feel almost unbearably cruel as Jasmine is forced to pull herself up by her bootstraps, not an easy task for someone accustomed to Jimmy Choos. Eventually she begins working as a receptionist for a lecherous dentist (Michael Stuhlbarg) and taking computer classes, the first steps toward a highly improbable career in interior design. Yet far from humbling or inspiring her, hard work seems to make her only more pinched, whiny and abrasive, and as she compulsively mixes martinis and Xanax, she becomes ever more critical of the easily contented Ginger and her “loser” boyfriend.
While the New York flashbacks occasionally veer toward overstatement, they convey more than mere backstory, providing a psychological entry point as Jasmine becomes more and more unglued with every painful reminder of what she’s lost. Quivering with barely repressed rage, at times muttering to herself as she stares blankly into the void, Jasmine instantly takes her place among the most dynamic female protagonists in the Allen oeuvre, which is no small feat. It’s a brilliantly bipolar piece of acting, bringing an almost Method rawness to the writer’s typically refined dialogue, and what gives Blanchett’s performance such force is how expertly she modulates her character’s mood swings: One minute she’s a pill-popping, bleary-eyed wreck, the next she’s a vision of radiant, sylphlike elegance (especially in an array of stunning outfits designed by Suzy Benzinger), cozying up to a handsome diplomat (Peter Sarsgaard) who may hold the key to her future.
It becomes clear that while Jasmine scarcely deserves her fantasy world of effortless, extravagant wealth, it’s a world she absolutely belongs to and thrives in. Our sympathies are artfully scrambled; we begin to root for this over-entitled, self-destructive shrew to find love and lucre in spite of herself, lending the story a certain train-wreck fascination as it barrels toward its bitterly ironic conclusion.
The script takes a similarly complex view of its secondary characters, and what gives “Blue Jasmine” its particular integrity is its acknowledgment that, despite their obvious differences in sophistication, taste and socioeconomic background, every one of these folks may have a point. Allen’s sense of class stratification here isn’t exactly nuanced, but his sympathies are more evenly distributed than usual, and he happily reveals more than one side to every personality, a strategy that helps bring out the best in a very fine cast.
Inclined as one might be to condescend to coarse, working-class Joes like Chili and Augie (the names here are especially pungent and evocative), the film duly acknowledges that these dudes are far more admirable than their upscale counterparts, a point that Cannavale and Clay (an especially offbeat and rewarding casting choice) underscore with their mouthy, big-hearted performances. The other male roles have been cast with similar care: Baldwin, back for more after “To Rome With Love,” is almost too persuasive as a Wall Street sleaze; Louis C.K. is likable as a guy who takes a particularly randy interest in Ginger; and Alden Ehrenreich makes a welcome appearance as Hal’s Ivy Leaguer son. But besides Blanchett, it’s Hawkins who leaves the strongest impression as the sensitive and sensible Ginger, deflecting her sister’s attacks with endless patience and the occasional well-deserved telling-off. It’s the less flashy of the two roles, but Hawkins inhabits it with a graceful, unshowy depth of feeling.
While Allen displays more interest than usual in the particulars of lower-income living and even deigns to usher some of his characters into the computer age, the result can’t help but feel at times like a somewhat cushy, elevated Woody-world fantasy of workaday existence. Even Ginger’s Mission District apartment, meant to seem cramped in comparison to Jasmine’s beachside estate, looks relatively spacious considering the location. Along similar lines, Javier Aguierresarobe’s sun-dappled lensing can’t help but show off San Francisco to great advantage, as the film makes time for a walk along Ocean Beach, an amble through Chinatown, and a brief, obligatory shot of the Golden Gate Bridge. The old jazz standard “Blue Moon” makes a poignant main theme for this tale of romantic longing.
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I love the movie “Midnight in Paris” by Woody Allen and I have done over 30 posts on the historical characters mentioned in the film. Take a look below:
I have spent alot of time talking about Woody Allen films on this blog and looking at his worldview. He has a hopeless, meaningless, nihilistic worldview that believes we are going to turn to dust and there is no afterlife. Even though he has this view he has taken the opportunity to look at the weaknesses of […]
I have spent alot of time talking about Woody Allen films on this blog and looking at his worldview. He has a hopeless, meaningless, nihilistic worldview that believes we are going to turn to dust and there is no afterlife. Even though he has this view he has taken the opportunity to look at the weaknesses of […]
Woody Allen video interview in France Related posts: “Woody Wednesdays” Woody Allen on God and Death June 6, 2012 – 6:00 am Good website on Woody Allen How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? If Jesus Christ came back today and […]
I have spent alot of time talking about Woody Allen films on this blog and looking at his worldview. He has a hopeless, meaningless, nihilistic worldview that believes we are going to turn to dust and there is no afterlife. Even though he has this view he has taken the opportunity to look at the weaknesses of […]
A surprisingly civil discussion between evangelical Billy Graham and agnostic comedian Woody Allen. Skip to 2:00 in the video to hear Graham discuss premarital sex, to 4:30 to hear him respond to Allen’s question about the worst sin and to 7:55 for the comparison between accepting Christ and taking LSD. ___________________ The Christian Post > […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 If you like Woody Allen films as much as I do then join me every Wednesday for another look the man and his movies. Below are some of the posts from the past: “Woody Wednesday” How Allen’s film “Crimes and Misdemeanors makes the point that hell is necessary […]
I really enjoyed this documentary on Woody Allen from PBS. Woody Allen: A Documentary, Part 1 Published on Mar 26, 2012 by NewVideoDigital Beginning with Allen’s childhood and his first professional gigs as a teen – furnishing jokes for comics and publicists – WOODY ALLEN: A DOCUMENTARY chronicles the trajectory and longevity of Allen’s career: […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 3 Uploaded by camdiscussion on Sep 23, 2007 Part 3 of 3: ‘Is Woody Allen A Romantic Or A Realist?’ A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, Crimes and Misdemeanors, perhaps his finest. By Anton Scamvougeras. http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/antons@mail.ubc.ca ______________ One of my favorite Woody Allen movies and I reviewed […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 2 Uploaded by camdiscussion on Sep 23, 2007 Part 2 of 3: ‘What Does The Movie Tell Us About Ourselves?’ A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, perhaps his finest. By Anton Scamvougeras. http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/antons@mail.ubc.ca _________________- One of my favorite Woody Allen movies and I reviewed it earlier but […]
I have spent alot of time talking about Woody Allen films on this blog and looking at his worldview. He has a hopeless, meaningless, nihilistic worldview that believes we are going to turn to dust and there is no afterlife. Even though he has this view he has taken the opportunity to look at the weaknesses of […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 If you like Woody Allen films as much as I do then join me every Wednesday for another look the man and his movies. Below are some of the posts from the past: “Woody Wednesday” How Allen’s film “Crimes and Misdemeanors makes the point that hell is necessary […]
I have spent alot of time talking about Woody Allen films on this blog and looking at his worldview. He has a hopeless, meaningless, nihilistic worldview that believes we are going to turn to dust and there is no afterlife. Even though he has this view he has taken the opportunity to look at the weaknesses of […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 Uploaded by camdiscussion on Sep 23, 2007 Part 1 of 3: ‘What Does Judah Believe?’ A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, perhaps his finest. By Anton Scamvougeras. http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/antons@mail.ubc.ca _____________ One of my favorite films is this gem by Woody Allen “Crimes and Misdemeanors”: Film Review By […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 3 Uploaded by camdiscussion on Sep 23, 2007 Part 3 of 3: ‘Is Woody Allen A Romantic Or A Realist?’ A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, Crimes and Misdemeanors, perhaps his finest. By Anton Scamvougeras. http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/antons@mail.ubc.ca ______________ One of my favorite Woody Allen movies and I reviewed […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 2 Uploaded by camdiscussion on Sep 23, 2007 Part 2 of 3: ‘What Does The Movie Tell Us About Ourselves?’ A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, perhaps his finest. By Anton Scamvougeras. http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/antons@mail.ubc.ca _________________- One of my favorite Woody Allen movies and I reviewed it earlier but […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 Uploaded by camdiscussion on Sep 23, 2007 Part 1 of 3: ‘What Does Judah Believe?’ A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, perhaps his finest. By Anton Scamvougeras. http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/antons@mail.ubc.ca _____________ Today I am starting a discusssion of the movie “Crimes and Misdemeanors” by Woody Allen. This 1989 […]
How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture is a major Christian cultural and historical documentary film series and book. The book was written by presuppositionalisttheologianFrancis A. Schaeffer and first published in 1976. The book served as the basis for a series of ten films. Schaeffer narrated and appeared throughout the film series, which was produced by his son Frank Schaeffer and directed by John Gonser.[1] In the film series, Schaeffer attacked the influences of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Charles Darwin. The films were credited with inspiring a number of leaders of the American conservative evangelical movement, including Jerry Falwell.[2] The complete list of materials that the Schaeffers produced under the title “How Should We Then Live?” include the initial book, a study guide for the book, the ten-episode film series, and study aids for the films.
According to Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live traces Western history from Ancient Rome until the time of writing (1976) along three lines: the philosophic, scientific, and religious.[3] He also makes extensive references to art and architecture as a means of showing how these movements reflected changing patterns of thought through time. Schaeffer’s central premise is: when we base society on the Bible, on the infinite-personal God who is there and has spoken,[4] this provides an absolute by which we can conduct our lives and by which we can judge society. This leads to what Schaeffer calls “Freedom without chaos.”[5] When we base society on humanism, which he defines as “a value system rooted in the belief that man is his own measure, that man is autonomous, totally independent”,[6] all values are relative and we have no way to distinguish right from wrong except for utilitarianism.[7] Because we disagree on what is best for which group, this leads to fragmentation of thought,[8] which has led us to the despair and alienation so prevalent in society today.[9] Another premise is that modern relative values are based on Personal Peace (the desire to be personally unaffected by the world’s problems) and Affluence (an increasing personal income.)[10] He warns that when we live by these values we will be tempted to sacrifice our freedoms in exchange for an authoritarian government who will provide the relative values.[11] He further warns that this government will not be obvious like the fascist regimes of the 20th century but will be based on manipulation and subtle forms of information control, psychology, and genetics.[12]
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Ancient Rome – The finite Graeco-Roman gods were not a sufficient inward base for the Roman society: Rome crumbled from within, and the invasions of the barbarians only completed the breakdown.
Chapter 2: The Middle Ages – Had many positive elements of a Christian society, but allowed humanistic concepts to begin to blend with the earlier Bible based Christianity. These elements would begin to polarize in the Renaissance.
Chapter 3: The Renaissance – The rebirth of classical thought. The humanistic ideal, man beginning only from himself, becomes dominant and will continue to grow to its logical conclusion through the further periods.
Chapter 4: The Reformation – The philosophic reasons the reformers wanted to break away from the Church of Rome. The reformers attitudes toward art and culture.
Chapter 5: The Reformation – Continued – The effects the Reformation had on society, affecting thinkers who even themselves may not have been Christian by the traditional definition.
Chapter 6: The Enlightenment – How optimism at human potential became divorced from religion. How the French Revolution showed the logical conclusion of this.
Chapter 7: The Rise of Modern Science – Science’s foundation came from confidence that God had created an orderly world that we could understand.
Chapter 8: The Breakdown in Philosophy and Science – The shift from the concept of the uniformity in an open system to the concept of natural causes in a closed system[13] begins the descent to despair and the conclusion that man is merely a machine.[14]
Chapter 9: Modern Philosophy and Modern Theology – Further steps down the line of despair. How the theologians follow the philosophers.
Chapter 10: Modern Art, Music, Literature, and Films – Numerous examples of despair and alienation in modern productions.
Chapter 11: Our Society – How the values of personal peace and affluence permeate our society.
Chapter 12: Manipulation and the New Elite – How our society has opened itself up to the coming of an elite authoritarian state.
Chapter 13: The Alternatives – Return to the Christian foundation of our society[15] or face increasing economic breakdown, war, the chaos of violence, radical redistribution of wealth, and growing shortage of food and natural resources.[16]
A Special Note – Christians have special responsibilities
Chronological Index – A detailed time line, intended to be used like an index, with page number references tied to the text.
Topical Index – A more traditional index
Select Bibliography
Inspiration for the film series
The film series “Was intended as a Christian version of Sir Kenneth Clark‘s popular Civilization series on public television.”[17] Schaeffer often decried the Civilization series and other programs appearing on Public Television in America as part of a relativist conspiracy, declaring “Public television gives us many things that many of us like culturally, but is also completely committed to a propaganda position that the last reality is only material/energy shaped by pure chance. Clark’s Civilization, Bronowski‘s The Ascent of Man, Carl Sagan‘s Cosmos — they all say it. There is only one final view of reality that’s possible and that is that the final reality is material or energy shaped by pure chance. It is about us on every side, and especially the government and the courts have become the vehicle to force this anti-God view on the total population.”[18] A number of consultants and researchers were approached to provide input in specialist areas, these included Hans Rookmaaker for the history of art, and opera singer Jane Stuart Smith for music[19] A guide to accompany the film series was also produced to facilitate group study.
The film series
The film series How Should We Then Live? was a 1977 Gospel Films Production, written and narrated by Francis A. Schaeffer, executive producer Billy Zeoli, created and produced by Franky Schaeffer V, directed by John Gonser (some scenes by Franky Schaeffer V), post production directed by Mel White. Each episode is just under half an hour.
Episode I – The Roman Age
Episode II – The Middle Ages
Episode III – The Renaissance
Episode IV – The Reformation
Episode V – The Revolutionary Age
Episode VI – The Scientific Age
Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason
Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation
Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace & Affluence
Episode X – Final Choices
Reception
Speaking Tour
Colin Duriez, in his biography of Schaeffer, describes the initial speaking tour and its reception: “Schaeffer spoke at seminars across North America where the film series was shown. In an initial speaking tour of eighteen cities in 1977, there was an enthusiastic response to the screening of the ten half-hour episodes… The film series was also shown around Europe, including local screenings set up by churches and Christian groups in the United Kingdom… The prospect of a large screen presentation perhaps removed peoples fears of being lost, as when hearing or reading Schaeffer undiluted. The seminar pattern, with a lecture by Francis and a showing of an episode followed by his taking questions from the audience, anticipated the more controversial series Whatever Happened to the Human Race? which, however, had smaller audiences.”[20]
Influence among Evangelicals
The film series “became a sensation among evangelicals, drawing audiences of up to five thousand in the churches that screened it. The accompanying book was a best-seller in the evangelical market…”, selling forty thousand copies in the first three months.[20] “…[In America] Conservative evangelicals had been looking for an explanation for the secular drift of their country, and Schaeffer’s diagnosis of contemporary cultural ills gave them a framework for understanding it.”[21] With this and his other works “Schaeffer gave an entire generation of ministers the permission to read philosophy and to be engaged with the culture. It was not unusual for a ministerial student to be accused of ‘carnal-mindedness’ for reading philosophers or, even worse novelists, in an attempt to broaden the range of Christian apologetics. Schaeffer…can be credited for overcoming the monopoly of biblical studies and theology in the education of Evangelical ministers.”[17]
Frank Schaeffer the creator/producer of the film series states “How Should We Then Live? and the second series…”Whatever Happened to the Human Race? are still standard works today in thousands of evangelical high schools, colleges, and seminaries around the world. For many evangelicals, Francis Schaeffer is their first, and perhaps only, introduction to what ‘we’ think about art, history and culture, and politics – not to mention ‘life issues.'”[22]
In America the film series/book’s call to action against legalized abortion is seen as a key impetus to the development of a political Christian Right movement, “Conservative evangelicals’ newfound devotion to the GOP stemmed partly from their increased attention to abortion. In 1980, evangelicals had opposed abortion, but they generally viewed it as only one of many national sins, including the sexual revolution, homosexuality, feminism, and pornography. In the mid-1980s, evangelicals moved closer to the conservative Catholic position on the issue and began to view abortion as a unique evil, far worse than other national sins. Evangelicals heightened concern about abortion was largely due to the influence of Francis Schaeffer and his son Franky.”[21] It is generally admitted by Evangelical leaders, such as Ralph Reed, that “abortion only became a central issue for Evangelicals as a result of a book and ten-part film series in 1976, How Should We Then Live?“[17]
Catholic response
While praising Schaeffer’s message against legalized abortion, Schaeffer’s comments in the film series/book about the Catholic Church drew a critical response. In the series, particularly when speaking about the Reformation, Schaeffer repeats much of the Criticism of the Catholic Church made by previous Protestant leaders and restates such criticism as accepted fact. Catholics have always taken issue with such claims, seeing them as outright falsehoods or at the very least misrepresenting their faith.
Aquinas controversy
Roman Catholic scholar Taylor Marshall has disputed Schaeffer’s assessment of Thomas Aquinas, specifically with regard to the effect of the Fall on the intellect, which was subsequently repeated by other theologians following after Schaeffer (such as Tim Lahaye in The Battle for the Mind). In both the book and film series Schaeffer states: “Then came Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican Monk. He was the outstanding theologian of that period and his thinking still has much influence. He had an incomplete view of the fall of man, as man had revolted against God. In his view the human will was fallen or corrupted, but the intellect was not. As a result of this emphasis, gradually philosophy began to act in an increasingly independent autonomous manner.” Schaeffer, who never actually quotes Aquinas in the series, goes on to mark him as a key source for the development of humanism and relativism.
Dr. Taylor Marshall in response points to Aquinas’ work (Summa Theologica Ia, q. 85 a. 3) where he expounds on the work of the Venerable Bede, who lists the effects of the fall of man as four wounds which includes the fall of the human intellect. Aquinas writes “Therefore in so far as the reason is deprived of its order to the true, there is the wound of ignorance; in so far as the will is deprived of its order of good, there is the wound of malice; in so far as the irascible is deprived of its order to the arduous, there is the wound of weakness; and in so far as the concupiscible is deprived of its order to the delectable, moderated by reason, there is the wound of concupiscence.”[23]
In absolute contrast to Schaeffer, Catholics see Aquinas as an enemy of relativism citing his work on theology (including ST I Q1 A6 ad 2) where he says “The principles of other sciences either are evident and cannot be proved, or are proved by natural reason through some other science. But the knowledge proper to this science [theology] comes through revelation and not through natural reason. Therefore it has no concern to prove the principles of other sciences, but only to judge of them. Whatsoever is found in other sciences contrary to any truth of this science must be condemned as false: ‘Destroying counsels and every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God’ (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).”[24] Rather than Aquinas, Catholics see Immanuel Kant as the key figure in Modern Relativism.[25]
Unease over Schaeffer’s portrayal of Aquinas is not limited to Catholics. J.P. Moreland, a professor of the Talbot School of Theology, writing the forward to the 2006 reprint of Schaeffer’s book Escape from Reason, states “Others argue, sometime correctly, that Schaeffer paints with too broad a brush and, as a result, somewhat misrepresents certain thinkers. I, for one, do not think his treatment of Thomas Aquinas is entirely fair or accurate. However at the end of the day these criticisms miss the genius of this book.”[26]
As an indication of the controversy of his position on Aquinas, soon after Schaeffer’s death the premier Evangelical magazine Christianity Today, included a cartoon of him. In it Schaeffer enters the gates of heaven with his trademark goatee while wearing lederhosen. Saint Peter finds his name in the Book of Life and says “Francis Schaeffer…Oh, yes. Saint Thomas Aquinas would like to have a word with you.”[27]
References
^ Colin Duriez (2008). Francis Schaeffer – An Authentic Life, page 184. InterVarsity Press
^ abc Deal Wyatt Hudson (2008). Onward Christian soldiers: the growing political power of Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States. New York,NY: Threshold Editions.[page needed]
^ Colin Duriez (2008). Francis Schaeffer – An Authentic Life, page 184. InterVarsity Press
^ ab Duriez. Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life, page 186
^ ab Daniel K. Williams (2010). God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right. Oxford University Press.[page needed]
^ Frank Schaeffer (2007). Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back. Carrol & Graf.[page needed]
The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story Pt.1 – Today’s Christian Videos The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story – Part 3 of 3 Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the […]
THE MARK OF A CHRISTIAN – CLASS 1 – Introduction Published on Mar 7, 2012 This is the introductory class on “The Mark Of A Christian” by Francis Schaeffer. The class was originally taught at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Overland Park, KS by Dan Guinn from FrancisSchaefferStudies.org as part of the adult Sunday School hour […]
The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story Pt.1 – Today’s Christian Videos The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story – Part 3 of 3 Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the […]
The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story Pt.1 – Today’s Christian Videos The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story – Part 3 of 3 Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the […]
The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story Pt.1 – Today’s Christian Videos The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story – Part 3 of 3 Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the […]
The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story Pt.1 – Today’s Christian Videos The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story – Part 3 of 3 Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” (Episode 2) SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political views concerning […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political views […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 5) TRUTH AND HISTORY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political views concerning abortion, […]
Antony Flew, a well known spokesperson for atheism for several decades, changed his mind and turned from atheism to Deism. Professor Flew, who was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading, has given clear reasons why he made that transition. These reasons have been presented briefly in this compilation.
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The Bible and Science (Part 01)
Discussion (1 of 3): Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas
Uploaded on Sep 22, 2010
A discussion with Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas. This was held at Westminster Chapel March, 2008
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Moral Implications of Atheism – Kyle Butt
Quotes William Provine, Dan Barker, Charles Darwin,Peter Singer, James Rachels, Eric R. Pianka, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris
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Is There a God? William Lane Craig vs Victor J. Stenger (University of Hawaii, 2003)
Uploaded on Jul 31, 2011
http://reasonablefaith.org – University of Hawaii, 2003 – Is There a God? William Lane Craig vs Victor J. Stenger. A debate before a packed house at the University of Hawaii with Professor of Physics Victor Stenger in which Craig and Stenger square off on such issues as the Big Bang and the beginning of time, the odds of the fine-tuning of the constants and quantities requisite for life, evil and moral values, religious experience, and many more. This is William Lane Craig’s first debate with atheist Victor Stenger.
Antony Flew, the 81-year-old British philosophy professor who taught at Oxford and other leading universities, became an atheist at age 15. Throughout his long career he argued — including in debates with an atheist-turned-Christian named C. S. Lewis — that there was a “presumption of atheism,” that is, the existence of a creator could not be proved.
But he’s now been forced to face the evidence. It comes from the Intelligent Design movement, led by Dr. Phillip Johnson and particularly the work of Michael Behe, the Lehigh biochemist who has proven the “irreducible complexity” of the human cell structure. Though eighty-one years old, Flew has not let his thinking fossilize, but has faithfully followed his own dictum to “go where the evidence leads.”
Christian philosophy professor Gary Habermas of Liberty University conducted an interview with Flew that will be published in the winter issue of Philosophia Christi, the journal of the Evangelical Philosophical Society and Biola University. Flew told Habermas that a pivotal point in his thinking was when he realized two major flaws in the various theories of how nature might have created itself. First, he recognized that evolutionary theory has no reasonable explanation for “the first emergence of living from non-living matter” — that is, the origin of life. Second, even if a living cell or primitive animal had somehow assembled itself from non-living chemicals, he reasoned it would have no ability to reproduce.
Flew told Habermas, “This is the creature, the evolution of which a truly comprehensive theory of evolution must give some account. Darwin himself was well aware that he had not produced such an account. It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.”
Flew has, thus, become a Deist — that is, he acknowledges God as creator but not as a personal deity. In his opinion, “There is no room either for any supernatural revelation of that God or any transactions between that God and individual human beings.” In fact, he told a group last May that he considers both the Christian God and the Islamic God to be “omnipotent Oriental despots — cosmic Saddam Husseins.”
But a crack is beginning to develop in his opinion that God hasn’t spoken through Scripture. When he reads the first chapter of Genesis, Flew says he’s impressed that a book written thousands of years ago harmonizes with twenty-first-century science. “That this biblical account might be scientifically accurate,” says Flew, “raises the possibility that it is revelation.” A book containing factual statements that no human knew about at the time of writing seems to argue that the authors must have had coaching from the Creator.
The evidence is there for all who will look, as his one-time adversary C. S. Lewis discovered, and as more and more thinking intellectuals are discovering today. So it is that Antony Flew, perhaps the most famous philosopher of atheism, is just a step or two away from the kingdom.
The Christian influence on society is real and that is one of the reasons Antony Flew left Atheism!!! Beggar to Beggar Saved by Increments By Chuck Colson|Published Date: January 11, 2005 A leading intellectual elaborates on why he abandoned atheism. But, surprisingly, he says his reasons were not entirely intellectual. British philosophy professor Dr. Antony […]
In the below comment section David Noebel stated the following: Since writing my article on the origin of life I have read two books that basically make the same point and I will quote briefly from them, but encourage anyone interested in the subject to read both books from cover to cover: (1) John C. […]
___________ The Fine Tuning Argument for the Existence of God from Antony Flew! Imagine entering a hotel room on your next vacation. The CD player on the bedside table is softly playing a track from your favorite recording. The framed print over the bed is identical to the image that hangs over the fireplace at […]
_____________ Mark Oppenheimer of Time Magazine claims Antony Flew was convinced by PSEUDOSCIENCE that God exists!!! Below you will read: ”There Is a God” is perhaps the handiest primer ever written on the science (many would say pseudoscience) of religious belief. Regis Nicoll does a good job of refuting the claim that Flew was manipulated by […]
________ During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer and challenge them with the evidence for the Bible’s historicity and the claims of the gospel. Usually I would send them a cassette tape of Adrian Rogers’ messages “6 reasons I […]
During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer and challenge them with the evidence for the Bible’s historicity and the claims of the gospel. Usually I would send them a cassette tape of Adrian Rogers’ messages “6 reasons I know […]
________________________________ Discussion (1 of 3): Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas Uploaded on Sep 22, 2010 A discussion with Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas. This was held at Westminster Chapel March, 2008 ______________________ During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian […]
During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer and challenge them with the evidence for the Bible’s historicity and the claims of the gospel. Usually I would send them a cassette tape of Adrian Rogers’ messages “6 reasons I […]
Today I am going to look at H.J. Blackham and the artist featured today is Arturo Herrera. Herrera’s art interests me because it is based on the idea that accidental chance can bring about something beautiful and that is the same place that materialistic modern men like Blackham have turned to when they have concluded […]
_____________________________ Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 3 Uploaded by camdiscussion on Sep 23, 2007 Part 3 of 3: ‘Is Woody Allen A Romantic Or A Realist?’ A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, Crimes and Misdemeanors, perhaps his finest. By Anton Scamvougeras. http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/antons@mail.ubc.ca ______________ I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view. Although we are both Christians and have the Bible as the basis for our moral views, I did want you to take a close look at the views of the pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff too. Hentoff became convinced of the pro-life view because of secular evidence that shows that the unborn child is human. I would ask you to consider his evidence and then of course reverse your views on abortion.
___________________
Nat Hentoff is an atheist, but he became a pro-life activist because of the scientific evidence that shows that the unborn child is a distinct and separate human being and even has a separate DNA. His perspective is a very intriguing one that I thought you would be interested in. I have shared before many cases (Bernard Nathanson, Donald Trump, Paul Greenberg, Kathy Ireland) when other high profile pro-choice leaders have changed their views and this is just another case like those. I have contacted the White House over and over concerning this issue and have even received responses. I am hopeful that people will stop and look even in a secular way (if they are not believers) at this abortion debate and see that the unborn child is deserving of our protection.That is why the writings of Nat Hentoff of the Cato Institute are so crucial.
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have. Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.
Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION
Francis Schaeffer: What Ever Happened to the Human Race? (Full-Length Documentary)
Part 1 on abortion runs from 00:00 to 39:50, Part 2 on Infanticide runs from 39:50 to 1:21:30, Part 3 on Youth Euthanasia runs from 1:21:30 to 1:45:40, Part 4 on the basis of human dignity runs from 1:45:40 to 2:24:45 and Part 5 on the basis of truth runs from 2:24:45 to 3:00:04
by Cathryn Donohoe; THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 6, 1989, Monday, Final Edition, November 6, 1989NEW YORK — Until 1984, he had not given much thought to abortion, he says. He had accepted the view of all the women he knew, including his wife, that the right to an abortion is part of a woman’s fundamental right to privacy, one that allows her control over her body and, by extension, her life.
Then came the case of Baby Jane Doe. She was a Long Island infant born with spina bifida (a condition in which the spinal cord is unprotected because the spinal column does not close properly before birth) and hydrocephalus (excess fluid in the cranium).
With surgery, spina-bifida babies can grow up to be bright, productive adults who might need braces to walk, Mr. Hentoff insists. Yet Baby Jane’s parents, on their doctors’ advice, had refused both surgery to close her spine and a shunt to drain the fluid from her brain. In resisting the federal government’s attempt to enforce treatment, the parents pleaded privacy.
What first piqued Mr. Hentoff’s curiosity was not so much the case itself but the press coverage. All the papers and the networks were using the same words to say the same thing, he says.
“Whenever I see that kind of story, where everybody agrees, I know there’s something wrong,” he says. “I finally figured out they were listening to the [parents’] lawyer.”
He went after the story, later publishing it in The Atlantic as “The Awful Privacy of Baby Doe.” In running it down, he found himself digging into the notorious, 2-year-old case of the first Infant Doe. That Bloomington, Ind., Down’s syndrome baby died of starvation over six days when his parents, who did not want a retarded child, refused surgery for his deformed esophagus.
Then Mr. Hentoff came across the published reports of experiments in what doctors at Yale-New Haven Hospital called “early death as a management option” for infants “considered to have little or no hope of achieving meaningful ‘humanhood.’ ” He talked with happy handicapped adults whose parents could have killed them but didn’t. It changed him.
But as he was fretting over Baby Jane, he says, civil libertarians, liberal congressmen and old ACLU friends were trying to steer him away.
“They were saying, ‘What’s the big fuss about? If the parents had known she was going to come in this way, they would have had an abortion. So why don’t youconsider it a late abortion and go on to something else?’
“Here were liberals, decent people, fully convinced themselves that they were for individual rights and liberties but willing to send into eternity these infants because they were imperfect, inconvenient, costly. I saw the same attitude on the part of the same kinds of people toward abortion, and I thought it was pretty horrifying.”
Mr. Hentoff has a pet phrase he draws from novelist William Burroughs. The moment of truth comes, he says, “when you see the naked lunch at the end of the fork.” Once he heard the phrase, “late abortion,” he knew what was at the end of the fork.
“The ‘slippery slope’ business began to make sense to me then,” he says. “From there it was ineluctable – not just abortion, but euthanasia as well.”
The Washington Times
______________________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband. Now after presenting the secular approach of Nat Hentoff I wanted to make some comments concerning our shared Christian faith. I respect you for putting your faith in Christ for your eternal life. I am pleading to you on the basis of the Bible to please review your religious views concerning abortion. It was the Bible that caused the abolition movement of the 1800’s and it also was the basis for Martin Luther King’s movement for civil rights and it also is the basis for recognizing the unborn children.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine […]
ABORTION – THE SILENT SCREAM 1 / Extended, High-Resolution Version (with permission from APF). Republished with Permission from Roy Tidwell of American Portrait Films as long as the following credits are shown: VHS/DVDs Available American Portrait Films Call 1-800-736-4567 http://www.amport.com The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Unjust laws exist. Shall we […]
I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet. (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on April 16, 2011. First you will see my letter to him which was mailed around April 9th(although […]
ABORTION – THE SILENT SCREAM 1 / Extended, High-Resolution Version (with permission from APF). Republished with Permission from Roy Tidwell of American Portrait Films as long as the following credits are shown: VHS/DVDs Available American Portrait Films Call 1-800-736-4567 http://www.amport.com The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Unjust laws exist. Shall we […]
When I think of the things that make me sad concerning this country, the first thing that pops into my mind is our treatment of unborn children. Donald Trump is probably going to run for president of the United States. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council recently had a conversation with him concerning the […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
Sometimes you can see evidences in someone’s life of how content they really are. I saw something like that on 2-8-13 when I confronted a blogger that goes by the name “AngryOldWoman” on the Arkansas Times Blog. See below. Leadership Crisis in America Published on Jul 11, 2012 Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s […]
In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented against abortion (Episode 1), infanticide (Episode 2), euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
What did we learn from the Laffer Curve in the 1980’s? Lowering top tax rate from 70% to 28% from 1980 to 1988 and those earning over $200,000 paid 99 billion in taxes instead of 19 billion!!!!
This means teaching folks on the left that tax policy affects incentives to earn and report taxable income. As such, I try to explain, this means it is wrong to assume a simplistic linear relationship between tax rates and tax revenue. If you double tax rates, for instance,you won’t double tax revenue.
But it also means teaching folks on the right that it is wildly wrong to claim that “all tax cuts pay for themselves” or that “tax increases always mean less revenue.” Those results occur in rare circumstances, but thereal lesson of the Laffer Curveis that some types of tax policy changes will result in changes to taxable income, and those shifts in taxable income will partially offset the impact of changes in tax rates.
However, even though both sides may need some education, it seems that the folks on the left are harder to teach – probably because the Laffer Curve is more of a threat to their core beliefs.
If you explain to a conservative politician that a goofy tax cut (such as a new loophole to help housing) won’t boost the economy and that the static revenue estimate from the bureaucrats at the Joint Committee on Taxation is probably right, they usually understand.
But liberal politicians get very agitated if you tell them that higher marginal tax rates on investors, entrepreneurs, and small business owners probably won’t generate much tax revenue because of incentives (and ability) to reduce taxable income.
To be fair, though, some folks on the left are open to real-world evidence. And thisIRS data from the 1980s is particularly effectiveat helping them understand the high cost of class-warfare taxation.
There’s lots of data here, but pay close attention to the columns on the right and see how much income tax was collected from the rich in 1980, when the top tax rate was 70 percent, and how much was collected from the rich in 1988, when the top tax rate was 28 percent.
The key takeaway is that the IRS collected fives times as much income tax from the rich when the tax rate was far lower. This isn’t just an example of the Laffer Curve. It’s the Laffer Curve on steroids and it’s one of those rare examples of a tax cut paying for itself.
Folks on the right, however, should be careful about over-interpreting this data. There were lots of factors that presumably helped generate these results, including inflation, population growth, and some of Reagan’s other policies. So we don’t know whether the lower tax rates on the rich caused revenues to double, triple, or quadruple. Ask five economists and you’ll get nine answers.
But we do know that the rich paid much more when the tax rate was much lower.
This is an important lesson because Obama wants to run this experiment in reverse. He hasn’t proposed to push the top tax rate up to 70 percent, thank goodness, but the combined effect of his class-warfare policies would mean a substantial increase in marginal tax rates.
To broaden the understanding of the Laffer Curve, share these three videos with your friends and colleagues.
This first video explains the theory of the Laffer Curve.
The Laffer Curve, Part I: Understanding the Theory
Uploaded onJan 28, 2008
The Laffer Curve charts a relationship between tax rates and tax revenue. While the theory behind the Laffer Curve is widely accepted, the concept has become very controversial because politicians on both sides of the debate exaggerate. This video shows the middle ground between those who claim “all tax cuts pay for themselves” and those who claim tax policy has no impact on economic performance. This video, focusing on the theory of the Laffer Curve, is Part I of a three-part series. Part II reviews evidence of Laffer-Curve responses. Part III discusses how the revenue-estimating process in Washington can be improved. For more information please visit the Center for Freedom and Prosperity’s web site: http://www.freedomandprosperity.org
This second video reviews some of the real-world evidence.
The Laffer Curve, Part II: Reviewing the Evidence
Uploaded onFeb 24, 2008
This video reviews real-world evidence showing that changes in marginal tax rates can have a significant impact on taxable income, thus leading to substantial amounts of revenue feedback. In a few cases, tax-rate reductions even “pay for themselves,” though the key lesson is the more modest point that pro-growth changes in tax policy will have a positive impact on economic performance and that good tax cuts therefore do not “cost” the government much in terms of foregone tax revenue.
This video is second installment of a three-part series. Part I reviews theoretical relationship between tax rates, taxable income, and tax revenue. Part III discusses how the revenue-estimating process in Washington can be improved. For more information please visit the Center for Freedom and Prosperity’s web site: http://www.freedomandprosperity.org.
___________________
And this video exposes the biased an inaccurate “static scoring” of the Joint Committee on Taxation.
The Laffer Curve, Part III: Dynamic Scoring
Uploaded onMay 28, 2008
A video by CF&P Foundation that builds on the discussion of theory in Part I and evidence in Part II, this concluding video in the series on the Laffer Curve explains how the Joint Committee on Taxation’s revenue-estimating process is based on the absurd theory that changes in tax policy – even dramatic reforms such as a flat tax – do not effect economic growth. In other words, the current system assumes the Laffer Curve does not exist. Because of congressional budget rules, this leads to a bias for tax increases and against tax cuts. The video explains that “static scoring” should be replaced with “dynamic scoring” so that lawmakers will have more accurate information when making decisions about tax policy. For more information please visit the Center for Freedom and Prosperity’s web site: http://www.freedomandprosperity.org.
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. The way […]
Dan Mitchell does a great job explaining the Laffer Curve President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a […]
I have put up lots of cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism, Greece, welfare state or on gun control. Today’s cartoon deals with the Laffer curve. Revenge of the Laffer Curve…Again and Again and Again March 27, 2013 […]
Class Warfare just don’t pay it seems. Why can’t we learn from other countries’ mistakes? Class Warfare Tax Policy Causes Portugal to Crash on the Laffer Curve, but Will Obama Learn from this Mistake? December 31, 2012 by Dan Mitchell Back in mid-2010, I wrote that Portugal was going to exacerbate its fiscal problems by raising […]
The Laffer Curve – Explained Uploaded by Eddie Stannard on Nov 14, 2011 This video explains the relationship between tax rates, taxable income, and tax revenue. The key lesson is that the Laffer Curve is not an all-or-nothing proposition, where we have to choose between the exaggerated claim that “all tax cuts pay for themselves” […]
I enjoyed this article below because it demonstrates that the Laffer Curve has been working for almost 100 years now when it is put to the test in the USA. I actually got to hear Arthur Laffer speak in person in 1981 and he told us in advance what was going to happen the 1980′s […]
I got to hear Arthur Laffer speak back in 1981 and he predicted what would happen in the next few years with the Reagan tax cuts and he was right with every prediction. The Laffer Curve Wreaks Havoc in the United Kingdom July 1, 2012 by Dan Mitchell Back in 2010, I excoriated the new […]
Raising taxes will not work. Liberals act like the Laffer Curve does not exist. The Laffer Curve Shows that Tax Increases Are a Very Bad Idea – even if They Generate More Tax Revenue April 10, 2012 by Dan Mitchell The Laffer Curve is a graphical representation of the relationship between tax rates, tax revenue, and […]
(This letter was emailed to White House on 11-21-11.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse […]
Will Rogers has a great quote that I love. He noted, “Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it’s not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago”(Paula McSpadden Love, The Will Rogers Book, (1972) p. 20.) Dan Mitchell praises Calvin Coolidge for keeping the federal government small. […]
Vocalist Thomas Mars, bassist Deck d’Arcy, and guitarist Chris Mazzalai started playing together as a “garage band” based out of Mars’s house in the suburbs of Paris, France. In 1995, Laurent Brancowitz, Mazzalai’s older brother, permanently joined the band on guitar after the end of Darlin’, a short-lived band that Brancowitz had formed with Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (Bangalter and de Homem-Christo later formed Daft Punk.[4]) Two years later the band took on the name Phoenix and pressed 500 copies of a single on their own label, Ghettoblaster. Shortly after, they were signed to the Paris-based Source Records. Phoenix became well acquainted with labelmates Air when they acted as their backing band on several U.K. TV appearances.[5]
Following their two singles “If I Ever Feel Better” and “Too Young”, United was released in 2000. Their track “Too Young” was in the soundtrack for the movie Lost in Translation (which was directed by Thomas’ future wife, Sofia Coppola), and was also played in the movie Shallow Hal. The band’s second album, Alphabetical, was released in 2004 and saw the band reach more mainstream success, with the singles “Everything Is Everything” and “Run Run Run” reaching some alternative rock airplay charts.[which?]Hedi Slimane commissioned a special mix of their song “Victim of the Crime” as the soundtrack to one of his runway shows for Dior Homme.
Phoenix – Lisztomania Official Video (Best Quality + Lyrics)
Live! Thirty Days Ago, It’s Never Been Like That and Kitsuné Tabloid (2005-2009)[edit]
Following Alphabetical, the band toured three continents, playing 150 dates. This tour was followed up with a live album, Live! Thirty Days Ago, released only 30 days after the end of the tour. Phoenix then spent time in Berlin during the summer of 2005, making use of Planet Roc studios to produce their third album, It’s Never Been Like That. To promote the release of It’s Never Been Like That, Phoenix toured the United States and Europe in 2006. American band Paramore performed a cover of the song “Long Distance Call” live on Taratata, a French TV show.
The band curated a compilation album for French electronic music record and fashion label Kitsuné .It was released on March 23, 2009, just about 2 months short of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.The mix tape includes music by Elvis Costello, Roxy Music, Kiss, Lou Reed and others.
In early 2009, it was announced that the band was returning with a new album titled Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, which was released on May 25, 2009.[6] The album was recorded in Paris, and was co-produced and mixed by Philippe Zdar of Cassius.[7] “1901“, a tribute to early Paris, was released on February 23, 2009 as a free download prior to the release of the first single and aired for the first time on Australian radio station Triple J.
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix won Best Alternative Music Album at the 2009 Grammy Awards on January 31, 2010. Shortly afterwards, “1901” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Alternative Songs chart.[14] The album was the first Phoenix album to be certified gold and appeared on numerous “Best of” lists at the end of 2010, including Rolling Stone magazine.[15]
Allmusic.com, a review website, commented favourably on the release of the album. “Beyond containing the band’s best, most efficient songwriting, the album also stands apart from the first three studio albums by projecting a cool punch that is unforced,” a reviewer commented.[16] Vocalist Thomas Mars, described as “more bright-eyed and youthful than ever,” is more prominent in these songs, harmonising well with the instruments. “Maybe they’ve just hit their stride,” the reviewer says.
Phoenix are the subject of a documentary From a Mess to the Masses that documents their 2009-2010 tour in support of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. The film was directed by Antoine Wagner and Francisco Soriano—Wagner was also responsible for directing the “Lisztomania” music video. The title of the documentary is a lyrical excerpt from “Lisztomania” and the total running time is 52 minutes. From a Mess to the Masses premiered in Germany and France on the Arte television network on October 13, 2011.[17][18]
Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION
Francis Schaeffer: What Ever Happened to the Human Race? (Full-Length Documentary)
Part 1 on abortion runs from 00:00 to 39:50, Part 2 on Infanticide runs from 39:50 to 1:21:30, Part 3 on Youth Euthanasia runs from 1:21:30 to 1:45:40, Part 4 on the basis of human dignity runs from 1:45:40 to 2:24:45 and Part 5 on the basis of truth runs from 2:24:45 to 3:00:04
By: FMeekins (Diary) | August 23rd, 2012 at 05:29 PM | 0
RESIZE: AAA
Francis Schaeffer has been characterized as an Elijah to the late twentieth century. Though not as inspired in the same direct sense as his Biblical forebears, Francis Schaeffer did articulate a vision of the future remarkable in its accuracy and a message startling in its relevancy. Schaeffer was able to accomplish this by extrapolating from the cultural situation of the late 1960′s and early 1970′s and projecting these trends into the future where the implications of these assumptions would have the time necessary to fester over into a comprehensive dystopian milieu. Schaeffer’s “The Church At The End 20th Century”, from a standpoint a tad less than nearly a half century in the past, explored a world not unlike our own where Western society has abandoned its Judeo-Christian foundations and stands poised to lose not only its order but also its liberty as a consequence.
Throughout the corpus of his life’s work, Francis Schaeffer categorized ideas as the primary force motivating history. Richard Pierard in “Reflections On Francis Schaeffer” says regarding Schaeffer’s philosophy of history, “People’s world views or presuppositions determine the direction of their political and social institutions and their scientific endeavors (199).” “The Church At The End Of The 20th Century” attempts to show how such distorted thinking comes to impact the structures of civilized existence such as the institutions of government and culture.
Francis Schaeffer concluded that the confusion and chaos rampant at the end of the twentieth century were traceable to the rejection of the Judeo-Christian foundations upon which Western civilization once sat. However, as a result, modern man has not drifted along as before, blissfully unencumbered by the burdens classical theism strove to address. Instead the whole world has pretty much started falling apart. In the first chapter titled “The Roots Of The Student Revolution”, Schaeffer provides a summary of the streams of thought he saw as establishing the backdrop of the contemporary world drama.
Having abandoned the Judeo-Christian worldview, modern man has also forfeited many of the benefits inherent to that particular body of thought. Being the God of both the physical realm and its order as well as the realm of the spirit and its yearning for freedom, those turning their backs on the God of the Bible inevitably end up losing an essential balance between these two pillars of existence.
Much of the social confusion characterizing the contemporary world is understandable in terms of these extremes dancing unfettered across America’s cultural landscape. In the mind of Schaeffer, philosophies and perspectives seemingly light-years apart to the casual observer were in the final analysis interconnected in that they stemmed from the same root problem.
A number of thinkers who have abandoned Judeo-Christian principles have attempted to find ultimate answers in an understanding of science construed though their materialistic philosophy excluding life’s spiritual component. Schaeffer referred to this approach as “modern modern science” (13).
Schaeffer deliberately distinguished between modern science and modern modern science in an attempt to emphasize the difference between the two epistemological approaches. Schaeffer stressed that modern science in fact arose amidst a Christian framework. The methodology’s earliest practitioners believed that one could understand the operation of the physical universe since it had been imbued with a sense of orderliness by its rational creator.
However, modern modern science would step beyond the confines of such a paradigm to exclude the role of God by arguing that the universe is a closed system complete in itself. But by eliminating the need for a personal Creator, modern modern science also eliminates those aspects of man transcending the sum of his material parts or those qualities Schaffer cleverly referred to as “the mannishness of man”.
When the cosmos is reduced to mere matter, man can no longer be seen as possessing those qualities that distinguish him from the proverbial furniture of the universe. Instead of arising as responses to metaphysical verities, things such as emotions, thoughts, and acts of creativity are reduced to nothing more than responses to electro-chemical biological stimuli. The aspirations the Declaration of Independence gives rise to become no different than the reaction to the gastrointestinal conditions sparking heartburn and may in fact possibly be interrelated.
The hypothesis of man as little more than an empty bag of mostly water, as the infamous Crystalline Entity put it on one episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, does not fit the data or provide much comfort on a cold night when we consider the aspects of existence seeming to rise above the immediacy of our biological functions. Such inadequacy no doubt provokes a response from those not willing to accept how divine revelation fills in these blanks but who realize that the cold scientism of Mr. Spock does not quite cut it either.
Schaeffer pointed out that assorted brands of mysticism are often, surprisingly, the children of scientism’s ultimate consequences. With rationalism found wanting, modern man feels he must step beyond reason and make what Schaeffer refers to as “a leap upstairs” in order to find meaning in nonrational experience.
Writing along similar lines, James Sire says of existentialism in “The Universe Next Door”, “….against the absurdity of the objective world, the authentic person must revolt and create value (100).” Values are not arrived at in a rational manner through contemplation upon transcendent criteria but through an intuitive choice based upon feeling much more akin to a mystical experience whether we decide to embrace New Age pantheism or various forms of political activism.
In such a situation, one is reminded of the famous statement in “The Charge Of The Light Brigade”: “Ours is not reason why. Ours is but to do or die.” The human heart realizes that there are things worth valuing beyond the concrete material universe even if it cannot justify the basis for this belief. However, when rational standards are abandoned, chaos of some sort is usually bound to follow.
Perhaps the most ironic thing of this entire discussion is that, the further each alternative gets from the Judeo-Christian standard, the more allegedly objective rationalism and subjective romanticism come to resemble one another. Schaeffer argued that, without some kind of transcendent reference point, even the imposing intellectual monolith of contemporary science breaks down into personal preference and social utility.
Schaeffer illustrated this by highlighting how Cambridge Anthropologist Edmund Leach preferred a theory of evolution whereby all human races descended from one common ancestor rather than arising separately from one another (92). Leach based such a conclusion on no other criteria than that the theory of a single common ancestor fit better with the notions of racial harmony.
No longer are scientific decisions to be made in light of the facts or data available at the time but in reference to the same kind of subjective criteria by which we would decide whether to wear a red or blue tie to work tomorrow. Right answers and wrong answers become predicated on their usefulness to society or at least to those wielding power. One might say objectively that objectivity is not quite what it use to be.
Things might not be so bad if adherents of these worldviews sat in a corner and kept quiet amongst themselves. Yet the ironic thing is that those convinced that no objective truth exists seem the most bent on inflicting their version of it upon everyone else in the attempt to remold society in their own image. Regarding the application of secularist perspectives, Schaeffer was perceptive in realizing that —- as in the realm of thought —- these non-Biblical approaches to social organization end up in the same place as well.
Schaeffer elaborates upon what he sees as three alternatives to a society built upon Christian foundations. Despite the differences in these systems, each bears a striking similarity.
The first alternative Schaeffer warns about is hedonism, defined as each doing their own thing. The second alternative is what Schaeffer refers to as “the dictatorship of 51%” or what social scientists and political theorists classify as pure democracy where there are no absolutes or standards beyond what is determined by the electorate, in a focus group, or by a committee. The third possibility Schaeffer foresaw was some kind of dictatorship, either in the form of one-man rule or by an elite technocratic bureaucracy.
As with scientism and the subjectivism from which the aforementioned approaches to politics and social organization derive their foundations, it would seem on the first view that anarchism and the various forms of authoritarianism would have little in common. But once again, closer investigation reveals that each shares a startling degree of similarity.
Anarchy promises liberation through the abolition of all traditional standards and institutions. This is either an empty promise or the proponents of this particular outlook do not fully realize what they are advocating.
Without eternal standards through which rights and property are respected, freedom rests on a most precarious foundation. For while the adherents of the various form of Leftism claim to stand for freedom and rights, this concern extends only to those professing an ideology similar to their own or pursuing related ends. Schaeffer illustrates this in the case of one student radical in Paris who told a caller to radio program, “…you just shut up — I’ll never give you a chance to speak (Schaeffer, 32).”
So much for freedom of expression. One cannot argue that such incidents merely reflect the heat of the moment and do not represent the true sentiments of those advocating total social revolution. Similar sentiments have been expressed by the very theoreticians of this movement as normative operating procedure.
Herbert Marcuse is quoted in “Left Of Liberal” as saying, “Certain things cannot be said, certain things cannot be expressed…which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination (Bouscaren, 13).” In other words, those seeking a world of absolute decentralization in terms of morals just as much as politics would set themselves up as an elite imposing their own arbitrary standards with the same radical rigor they employed in their conflict to rend asunder the traditional order. Francis Fukuyama, author of the acclaimed “The End Of History & The Last Man” noted in a May 22, 2000 Time magazine article titled “Will Socialism Make A Comeback” that a socialistic anarchism will come to exert influence over the world of the twenty-first century without having to assume the formal reins of government by orchestrating disruptive protests like those that now regularly taken place during global financial summits in an attempt to alter world policy.
Francis Schaeffer has been with the Lord since the early 1980′s. Yet the thought of this visionary Presbyterian continues to provide considerable insight into a world tottering on the edge of chaos and encouragement for Evangelicals having to navigate a variety of perplexing issues. Schaeffer realized that one could not avoid the dangers of the contemporary world by simply ignoring arenas such as politics and other forms of social engagement since such forces have the power to impact all facets of existence in a mass society. Schaeffer addressed the impact of worldviews upon different aspects of culture in the chapter “Modern Man The Manipulator”.
Particularly startling is the accuracy of Schaeffer’s predictions regarding technological development. Schaeffer warned, “Very soon, all of us will be living in an electronic village hooked up to a huge computer, and we will be able to know what everybody else in the world thinks. The majority opinion will become law in that hour (97).”
Today, this prediction finds itself on the verge of fulfillment. Leaders such as Newt Gingrich and as far back as Ross Perot have suggested that the networking capability of the Internet be utilized for the purposes of referenda in order to decide major issues facing the nation. However, Schaeffer correctly warned of the manipulation likely to result from the use of this technology by and against individuals not adequately grounded in the truths that do not change regardless of the latest digital innovations. The Information Superhighway can take the websurfer either to the accumulated knowledge of mankind or the electronic equivalent of a red-light district.
Some will dismiss Schaeffer’s injunctions as Evangelical eschatological hysteria, especially when he speculates about the bio-electronic manipulation of individuals in reference to a May 22, 1970 International Herald Tribune article about monkey controlled by radio receivers implanted into their brains (98). That is until one reads the May 22, 2000 edition of Time Magazine predicting that prison guards may someday be obsolete thanks to implantable biochips that could be used to modify inmate behavior. Then one realizes that Francis Schaeffer’s understanding of human nature is truly holistic, comprehending the present in light of the past and the future in relation to the present.
It would not be much of an overstatement to say that Francis Schaeffer played a primary role in awakening Evangelicals to the precarious state of the world around them. One cannot discount the influence of Schaeffer upon the contemporary Evangelical mind. Regarding Schaeffer’s influence, Clark Pinnock writes in “Reflections On Francis Schaeffer”, “He [Schaeffer] enlisted in this task fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye who, although they were world-denying dispensationalists at first, quickly became culture-reclaiming activists (Pinnock, 179).” In other words, Schaeffer helped Evangelicalism realize that the world and human endeavor possessed value beyond the number of souls that could be saved, central though individual salvation may be.
Schaeffer in no way sought to undermine the centrality of the individual, but rather hoped to expand Evangelical concerns to encompass all areas of thought and creation since the God the Christian served was the master of these as well. It was out of this sanctity for the individual created in the image of God that Schaeffer believed it was imperative for believers to engage in these other areas. Key to accomplishing this mission, Schaeffer believed each individual must take stock of their personal beliefs. Schaeffer often lamented that most people caught their presuppositions like they would the measles —- quite haphazardly.
Such reflection was just not to be a Sunday school exercise. Schaeffer saw it as groundwork for intensive apologetic conflict and engagement with a decaying world. Though himself a Presbyterian minister and evangelist, Schaeffer hoped to inspire Christians to get involved as salt and light in all academic disciplines and intellectual pursuits. Schaeffer said that the best thing a Christian scientist could do would be to invent a computer for the individual designed to counter the centralizing tendency of intrusive databases (Schaeffer, 99). No where did he conclude that learning was off limits to the believer since it had often been employed for questionable purposes.
I Chronicles 12:32 praises the children of Issachar for understanding the times in which they lived. Our own era stands witness to a rate of change unprecedented in the pages of history. Like the men of Issachar, Francis Schaeffer will be remembered as one of the few capable of rising above the confusion of the moment to determine the overall place of our times in relation to God’s providence and the consequences that will result from ignoring it.
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political views […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 5) TRUTH AND HISTORY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices once […]
The opening song at the beginning of this episode is very insightful. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 3) DEATH BY SOMEONE’S CHOICE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” (Episode 2) SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices […]
It is not possible to know where the pro-life evangelicals are coming from unless you look at the work of the person who inspired them the most. That person was Francis Schaeffer. I do care about economic issues but the pro-life issue is the most important to me. Several years ago Adrian Rogers (past president of […]
This essay below is worth the read. Schaeffer, Francis – “Francis Schaeffer and the Pro-Life Movement” [How Should We Then Live?, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, A Christian Manifesto] Editor note: <p> </p> [The following essay explores the role that Francis Schaeffer played in the rise of the pro-life movement. It examines the place of […]
Great article on Schaeffer. Who was Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer? By Francis Schaeffer The unique contribution of Dr. Francis Schaeffer on a whole generation was the ability to communicate the truth of historic Biblical Christianity in a way that combined intellectual integrity with practical, loving care. This grew out of his extensive understanding of the Bible […]
I have debated with Ark Times Bloggers many times in the past on many different subjects. Abortion is probably the most often debated subject and I have noticed that many pro-life individuals are now surfacing on the Arkansas Times Blog. Here are some examples. Arhogfan501 asserted: This is the beginning of the end for recreational abortion in Arkansas. Songbird777 noted: Babies have a right to live and not be chopped up for someone else’s convenience. The person using the username “baker” commented: Planned Parenthood (PPA) does not nor cannot provide mammograms, indeed no affiliate has the necessary license. PPA is an abortion provider and at some 900 plus killings a day rather prolific.
Here is another debate I got into recently on the Arkansas Times Blog:
Saline slips in partial birth abortion, not the subject we’re discussing and something that is very rare in the US. It’s something I never had to face, thank Allah and something I want to know NOTHING about.
You people feed on stories like you copy/pasted and stories about… plays about aborted children dropping from space to have a discussion with the parents who aborted them. Clearly you and I don’t think alike at all.
I also have to say based on evidence on this blog that Saline is unable to choose the right people to read or listen to. He pulls out the damnedest experts, most who are totally discredited by thinking beings on the Internet. I think this goes back to my Republican friends who still believe Obama is a Kenyan Socialist and GWB is a hero…..you get down to it and it’s obvious they don’t know the difference between a good President and a bad one.
I’ll admit I don’t know the difference between a good horse or a bad horse, a good table saw and a bad one or even a good bra from a bad one, but I try not to comment on such things in hopes of keeping my ignorance a secret from my blog family.
…..Saline, you must not really believe in the Bible that teaches many many lessons about the poor and nothing about abortion. I just checked my facts about the Bible and abortion and found nothing credible at all….at all! … This whole abortion debate at this late date of 2013 is sickening and a total waste of our time.
DBI you say that the issue of abortion is not addressed in the Bible.
A Biblical argument for life beginning at conception from Psalms 139 from Kerby Anderson of Probe Ministries:
One of the key verses to understand in developing a biblical view of the sanctity of human life is Psalm 139. This psalm is the inspired record of David’s praise for God’s sovereignty in his life. He begins by acknowledging that God is omniscient and knows what David is doing at any given point in time. He goes on to acknowledge that God is aware of David’s thoughts before he expresses them. David adds that wherever he might go, he cannot escape from God, whether he travels to heaven or ventures into Sheol. God is in the remotest part of the sea and even in the darkness. Finally David contemplates the origin of his life and confesses that God was there forming him in the womb:
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be (vv. 13-16).
Here David speaks of God’s relationship with him while he was growing and developing before birth. Notice that the Bible doesn’t speak of fetal life as mere biochemistry. The description here is not of a piece of protoplasm that becomes David: this is David already being cared for by God while in the womb.
In verse 13, we see that God is the Master Craftsman fashioning David into a living person. In verses 14 and 15, David reflects on the fact that he is a product of God’s creative work within his mother’s womb, and he praises God for how wonderfully God has woven him together.
David draws a parallel between his development in the womb and Adam’s creation from the earth. Using figurative language in verse 15, he refers to his life before birth when “I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.” This poetic allusion harkens back to Genesis 2:7 which says that Adam was made from the dust of the earth.
David also notes that “Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance.” This shows that God knew David even before he was known to others. The term translated unformed substance is a noun derivative of a verb meaning “to roll up.” When David was just forming as a fetus, God’s care and compassion already extended to him. The reference to “God’s eyes” is an Old Testament term used to connotate divine oversight of God in the life of an individual or group of people.
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have. Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.
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Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION
Francis Schaeffer: What Ever Happened to the Human Race? (Full-Length Documentary)
Part 1 on abortion runs from 00:00 to 39:50, Part 2 on Infanticide runs from 39:50 to 1:21:30, Part 3 on Youth Euthanasia runs from 1:21:30 to 1:45:40, Part 4 on the basis of human dignity runs from 1:45:40 to 2:24:45 and Part 5 on the basis of truth runs from 2:24:45 to 3:00:04
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Francis Schaeffer never backed down from his position that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Dr. Gene Veith, Jr. says: “Schaeffer showed that orthodox Christianity, uncompromised and undiluted, is strong enough to challenge secularist thought in its own territory.” I love taking Schaeffer’s work and applying it to today’s social problems. He knew where humanism would take us. It is not a pretty sight.
In Philadelphia in the late 1920’s, a young teenage boy decided that he didn’t need God. He had tried church, and it didn’t give him the answers he was looking for.
After a time of living as a self-proclaimed agnostic, he decided to read the Bible, beginning with Genesis, and see for himself if God exists. Within six months, he was convinced that God is real and that the Bible is His revealed Word to mankind. In 1930, eighteen-year-old Francis August Schaeffer prayed to receive Christ as his Savior.
From that day, for more than fifty years, Schaeffer was passionately committed to the proclamation and rational defense of the Gospel. One of the foremost Christian thinkers and apologists of this century, he wrote twenty-four books, which have been translated into more than twenty languages. Schaeffer’s basic message is the same – God’s Word is the only guide man needs to interpret his past and solve contemporary problems.
When Schaeffer graduated from Faith Theological Seminary in 1938, the United States faced many perplexing new social and religious problems. The evangelical movement was threatened by encroaching liberal ideologies, which argued that the Bible is not a reliable source of truth. He and his wife Edith, whom he had met at a church theology debate, were both eager for opportunities to speak out in defense of conservative doctrine.
As a pastor of several churches throughout Pennsylvania and Missouri, Schaeffer was grieved at the compromise he saw in many mainline Protestant denominations. Then, in the late 1940’s, he toured Europe on behalf of the American Council of Christian Churches. To his astonishment, he saw even greater needs there and moved to Switzerland to work with youth.
The Schaeffers founded the Children for Christ ministry in 1948 in Lausanne. With three daughters himself already, Schaeffer was familiar with the challenges of teaching young people. In the meantime, he continued touring, lecturing, and studying history and philosophy.
In 1951, Schaeffer’s heart became troubled. He wasn’t sure where God was leading him, and he questioned his convictions. He remembers, “I felt a strong burden to stand for the historical Christian position, and for the purity of the visible church. As I rethought my reasons for being a Christian, I saw again that there were totally sufficient reasons to know that the infinite-personal God does exist and Christianity is true.”
But what was the best way to reach cultures so closed to God’s Word? Schaeffer was convicted to start right where he lived in Switzerland. In 1955, he formally opened his chalet in Huemoz as a “home” for solid Bible teaching, where anyone could come and listen to thought-provoking analysis of Scripture. This haven of spiritual rest and discovery was named L’Abri.
Throughout the remainder of the 1950’s, but especially in the 1960’s when authority and “the establishment” were most severely questioned, L’Abri drew thousands of visitors. How did it keep going? Edith Schaeffer explains: “We prayed that God would bring the people of His choice…send in the needed financial means to care for us all, and open His plan to us.”
Scholar and WJI teacher (2002) Dr. Harold O.J. Brown says, “L’Abri’s initial theological impact was not made institutionally…but indirectly, through individuals whom the Schaeffers came to know and whose lives they changed.”
In 1968, Schaeffer published his first two books – Escape From Reason and The God Who Is There. In these landmark works he explored ways in which other philosophies have failed to adequately come to terms with real-world problems. Gradually, the work that Schaeffer had been developing for years gained recognition, especially in the United States.
It was largely the U. S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which opened the door to legal abortions on demand, that drew Schaeffer’s interest back to America. In the book How Should We Then Live?, Schaeffer addressed the foundational problems which led to this devaluing of human life.
Such a breakdown of values can eventually lead to further violations of human life in the forms of euthanasia and infanticide. With former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and his son Franky, Schaeffer published Whatever Happened To The Human Race?, which tackled these social issues specifically.
Schaeffer was frequently criticized by non-Christians, but more surprisingly by many Christians who were worried by the explicit stand he took for the bold and consistent application of the Bible.
However, Schaeffer continued to proclaim the message of the inerrant Bible. Dr. Gene Veith, Jr. says: “Schaeffer showed that orthodox Christianity, uncompromised and undiluted, is strong enough to challenge secularist thought in its own territory.”
When Schaeffer was diagnosed with cancer in 1981 and given only six months to live, he did not cease his labor. He had three more years of active teaching and exhorting. His illness, with its long and sometimes debilitating treatments, gave him fresh opportunities to address nationwide medical concerns.
Schaeffer died in his home on May 15, 1984. As President Ronald Reagan said: “It can rarely be said of an individual that his life touched many others and affected them for the better; it will be said of Dr. Francis Schaeffer that his life touched millions of souls and brought them to the truth of their Creator.
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political views […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 5) TRUTH AND HISTORY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices once […]
The opening song at the beginning of this episode is very insightful. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 3) DEATH BY SOMEONE’S CHOICE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” (Episode 2) SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices […]
It is not possible to know where the pro-life evangelicals are coming from unless you look at the work of the person who inspired them the most. That person was Francis Schaeffer. I do care about economic issues but the pro-life issue is the most important to me. Several years ago Adrian Rogers (past president of […]
This essay below is worth the read. Schaeffer, Francis – “Francis Schaeffer and the Pro-Life Movement” [How Should We Then Live?, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, A Christian Manifesto] Editor note: <p> </p> [The following essay explores the role that Francis Schaeffer played in the rise of the pro-life movement. It examines the place of […]
Great article on Schaeffer. Who was Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer? By Francis Schaeffer The unique contribution of Dr. Francis Schaeffer on a whole generation was the ability to communicate the truth of historic Biblical Christianity in a way that combined intellectual integrity with practical, loving care. This grew out of his extensive understanding of the Bible […]
Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?)
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro)
Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1)
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of Truth & History (part 2)
Today I am going to look at H.J. Blackham and the artist featured today is Arturo Herrera. Herrera’s art interests me because it is based on the idea that accidental chance can bring about something beautiful and that is the same place that materialistic modern men like Blackham have turned to when they have concluded that the origin of our existence can be explained by evolution which the combination of time, chance and matter and no designer needed.
Blackham lived to the age of 105 and died in 2009. During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer and challenge them with the evidence for the Bible’s historicity and the claims of the gospel. Usually I would send them a cassette tape of Adrian Rogers’ messages “6 reasons I know the Bible is True,” “The Final Judgement,” “Who is Jesus?” and the message by Bill Elliff, “How to get a pure heart.” I would also send them printed material from the works of Francis Schaeffer and a personal apologetic letter from me addressing some of the issues in their work. After reading Francis Schaeffer’s book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? I was interested in corresponding with H.J. Blackham because of a very powerful and revealing quote of his in Schaeffer’s book. I wrote him in 1994 and sent him the cassette tape mentioned early but never got a response back. Below is the Blackham quote as given by Schaeffer:
The humanist H. J. Blackham had this same message that “On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing, and every pretense that it does not is a deceit. If there is a bridge over a gorge which spans only half the distance and ends in mid-air, and if the bridge is crowded with human beings pressing on, one after the other they fall into the abyss. The bridge leads nowhere, and those who are pressing forward to cross it are going nowhere….It does not matter where they think they are going, what preparations for the journey they may have made, how much they may be enjoying it all. The objection merely points out objectively that such a situation is a model of futility“( H. J. Blackham, et al., Objections to Humanism (Riverside, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1967).
Actually this one quote alone from Blackham made me want to share the message that Christ does provide a lasting meaning to our lives, and that is why I started writing several leading atheists in the 1990’s. In my letters I demonstrated thatthere is evidence that points to the fact that the Bible is historically true as Schaeffer pointed out in episode 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? There is a basis then for faith in Christ alone for our eternal hope. This link shows how to do that.
J.I.PACKER WROTE OF SCHAEFFER, “His communicative style was not that of a cautious academic who labors for exhaustive coverage and dispassionate objectivity. It was rather that of an impassioned thinker who paints his vision of eternal truth in bold strokes and stark contrasts.Yet it is a fact that MANY YOUNG THINKERS AND ARTISTS…HAVE FOUND SCHAEFFER’S ANALYSES A LIFELINE TO SANITY WITHOUT WHICH THEY COULD NOT HAVE GONE ON LIVING.”
Francis Schaeffer in Art and the Bible noted, “Many modern artists, it seems to me, have forgotten the value that art has in itself. Much modern art is far too intellectual to be great art. Many modern artists seem not to see the distinction between man and non-man, and it is a part of the lostness of modern man that they no longer see value in the work of art as a work of art.”
Origins of the Universe (Kalam Cosmological Argument) (Paul Kurtz vs Norman Geisler)
Published on Jun 6, 2012
Norm Geisler argues via Kalam Cosmological Argument for the origins of the universe with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. No matter how much evidence Geisler gave, Paul Kurtz refused to fully acknowledge the implications of it, while NEVER giving evidence for his own interpretation of the universe’s beginning.
Paul Kurtz teamed up with H.J.Blackham and put together the Humanist Manifesto II which they both signed in 1973. I wrote back in 2012 when Paul Kurtz passed away that he was a fine gentleman that I had a chance to correspond with and I read several of his books (Forbidden Fruit was his best effort). One thing I vividly remember from the writings of Paul Kurtz was his love of life and his love for others. However, how can a materialist like Kurtz stay optimistic about his future when he did not believe in God or an afterlife? At the time when I was reading his writings that question kept popping up in my mind.
It is truly ironic to me that a truly outstanding person such as the British Humanist H.J. Blackham who lived such a long and interesting life would make the statement that “…On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing…” In fact, when Norman Geisler quoted this from Blackham in his famous debate with Paul Kurtz on the John Ankerberg Show, Kurtz said he knew Blackham and he was surprised that he would say such a thing, but that had been my contention that a secularist humanist worldview would logically lead to nihilism such as the nihilism that King Solomon discussed in Ecclesiastes (more on that later). How did humanist man get to that pessimistic conclusion? Francis Schaeffer has shed some light on that in his book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?
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Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR
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Following is the first few pages of the chapter “The Basis for Human Dignity” which is found in the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? by Francis Schaeffer.
Introduction
So far in this book we have been considering an evil as great as any practiced in human history. Our society has put to death its own offspring, millions upon millions of them. Our society has justified taking their lives, even claiming it a virtue to do so. It has been said that this is a new step in our progress toward a liberated humanity.
Such a situation has not come out of a vacuum. Each of us has an overall way of looking at the world, which influences what we do day by day. This is what we call a “world-view.” And all of us have a world-view, whether we realize it or not. We act in accordance with our world-view, and our world-view rests on what to us is the ultimate truth.
What has produced the inhumanity we have been considering in the previous chapters is that society in the West has adopted a world-view which says that all reality is made up only of matter. This view is sometimes referred to as philosophic materialism, because it holds that only matter exists; sometimes it is called naturalism, because it says that no supernatural exists. Humanism which begins from man alone and makes man the measure of all things usually is materialistic in its philosophy. Whatever the label, this is the underlying world-view of our society today. In this view the universe did not get here because it was created by a “supernatural” God. Rather, the universe has existed forever in some form, and its present form just happened as a result of chance events way back in time.
Society in the West has largely rested on the base that God exists and that the Bible is true. In all sorts of ways this view affected the society. The materialistic or naturalistic or humanistic world-view almost always takes a superior attitude toward Christianity. Those who hold such a view have argued that Christianity is unscientific, that it cannot be proved, that it belongs simply to the realm of “faith.” Christianity, they say, rests only on faith, while humanism rests on facts.
Professor Edmund R. Leach of Cambridge Universityexpressed this view clearly:
Our idea of God is a product of history. What I now believe about the supernatural is derived from what I was taught by my parents, and what they taught me was derived from what they were taught, and so on. But such beliefs are justified by faith alone, never by reason, and the true believer is expected to go on reaffirming his faith in the same verbal formula even if the passage of history and the growth of scientific knowledge should have turned the words into plain nonsense.78
So some humanists act as if they have a great advantage over Christians. They act as if the advance of science and technology and a better understanding of history (through such concepts as the evolutionary theory) have all made the idea of God and Creation quite ridiculous.
This superior attitude, however, is strange because one of the most striking developments in the last half-century is the growth of a profound pessimism among both the well-educated and less-educated people. The thinkers in our society have been admitting for a long time that they have no final answers at all.
Take Woody Allen, for example. Most people know his as a comedian, but he has thought through where mankind stands after the “religious answers” have been abandoned. In an article in Esquire (May 1977), he says that man is left with:
… alienation, loneliness [and] emptiness verging on madness…. The fundamental thing behind all motivation and all activity is the constant struggle against annihilation and against death. It’s absolutely stupefying in its terror, and it renders anyone’s accomplishments meaningless. As Camus wrote, it’s not only that he (the individual) dies, or that man (as a whole) dies, but that you struggle to do a work of art that will last and then you realize that the universe itself is not going to exist after a period of time. Until those issues are resolved within each person – religiously or psychologically or existentially – the social and political issues will never be resolved, except in a slapdash way.
Allen sums up his view in his film Annie Hall with these words: “Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.”
Many would like to dismiss this sort of statement as coming from one who is merely a pessimist by temperament, one who sees life without the benefit of a sense of humor. Woody Allen does not allow us that luxury. He speaks as a human being who has simply looked life in the face and has the courage to say what he sees. If there is no personal God, nothing beyond what our eyes can see and our hands can touch, then Woody Allen is right: life is both meaningless and terrifying. As the famous artist Paul Gauguin wrote on his last painting shortly before he tried to commit suicide: “Whence come we? What are we? Whither do we go?” The answers are nowhere, nothing, and nowhere. The humanist H. J. Blackham has expressed this with a dramatic illustration:
On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing, and every pretense that it does not is a deceit. If there is a bridge over a gorge which spans only half the distance and ends in mid-air, and if the bridge is crowded with human beings pressing on, one after the other they fall into the abyss. The bridge leads nowhere, and those who are pressing forward to cross it are going nowhere….It does not matter where they think they are going, what preparations for the journey they may have made, how much they may be enjoying it all. The objection merely points out objectively that such a situation is a model of futility.79
One does not have to be highly educated to understand this. It follows directly from the starting point of the humanists’ position, namely, that everything is just matter. That is, that which has existed forever and ever is only some form of matter or energy, and everything in our world now is this and only this in a more or less complex form.
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Notes
78. “When Scientists Play the Role of God,” London Times, November 16, 1978.
79. H. J. Blackham, et al., Objections to Humanism (Riverside, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1967).
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Francis Crick was in agreement with H.J.Blackham’s materialistic views and he concluded, “The Astonishing Hypothesis is that you—your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules” What if all this is true? What if the cosmos and the chemicals and the particles really are all that there is, and all that we are?
“If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless.” —Francis Schaeffer in The God Who Is There
“Eventually materialist philosophy undermines the reliability of the mind itself-and hence even the basis for science. The true foundation of rationality is not found in particles and impersonal laws, but in the mind of the Creator who formed us in His image.” —Phillip E. Johnson, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds “Can man live without God? Of course he can, in a physical sense.
Can he live without God in a reasonable way? The answer to that is No!” Then there is the problem the longing for satisfaction that every person feels. This is the same question that Solomon asked 3000 years ago in the Book of Ecclesiastes. He knew there was something more.
The Christian Philosopher Francis Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”
These two verses below take the 3 elements mentioned in a materialistic worldview (time, chance and matter) and so that is all the unbeliever can find “under the sun” without God in the picture. You will notice that these are the three elements that evolutionists point to also.
Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 is following: I have seen somthing else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brillant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them. __________
Let me show you some inescapable conclusions that Francis Schaeffer said you will face if you choose to live without God in the picture. Solomon came to these same conclusions when he looked at life “under the sun” in the Book of Ecclesiastes.
Death is the great equalizer (Eccl 3:20, “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.”)
Chance and time have determined the past, and they will determine the future. (Ecclesiastes 9:11-13)
Power reigns in this life, and the scales are not balanced(Eccl 4:1)
Nothing in life gives true satisfaction without God including learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).
Solomon had all the resources in the world and he found himself searching for meaning in life and trying to come up with answers concerning the afterlife. However, it seems every door he tries to open is locked. Today people try to find satisfaction in education, alcohol, pleasure, and their work and that is exactly what Solomon tried to do too. None of those were able to “fill the God-sized vacuum in his heart” (quote from famous mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal). You have to wait to the last chapter in Ecclesiates to find what Solomon’s final conclusion is.
In 1978 I heard the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas when it rose to #6 on the charts. That song told me that Kerry Livgren the writer of that song and a member of Kansas had come to the same conclusion that Solomon had. I remember mentioning to my friends at church that we may soon see some members of Kansas become Christians because their search for the meaning of life had obviously come up empty even though they had risen from being an unknown band to the top of the music business and had all the wealth and fame that came with that. Furthermore, Solomon realized death comes to everyone and there must be something more.
Livgren wrote:
“All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”
Music video by Kansas performing Dust In The Wind. (c) 2004 Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
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Both Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope of Kansas became Christians eventually. Kerry Livgren first tried Eastern Religions and Dave Hope had to come out of a heavy drug addiction. I was shocked and elated to see their personal testimony on The 700 Club in 1981 and that same interview can be seen on youtube today. Livgren lives in Topeka, Kansas today where he teaches “Diggers,” a Sunday school class at Topeka Bible Church. Hope is the head of Worship, Evangelism and Outreach at Immanuel Anglican Church in Destin, Florida.
Solomon’s experiment was a search for meaning to life “under the sun.” Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”
You can hear Kerry Livgren’s story from this youtube link:
(part 1 ten minutes)
(part 2 ten minutes)
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Take a minute and compare Kerry Livgren’s words to that of H.J. Blackham.
Livgren wrote:
“All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”
The humanist H. J. Blackham had this same message that
“On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing, and every pretense that it does not is a deceit. If there is a bridge over a gorge which spans only half the distance and ends in mid-air, and if the bridge is crowded with human beings pressing on, one after the other they fall into the abyss. The bridge leads nowhere, and those who are pressing forward to cross it are going nowhere….It does not matter where they think they are going, what preparations for the journey they may have made, how much they may be enjoying it all. The objection merely points out objectively that such a situation is a model of futility“( H. J. Blackham, et al., Objections to Humanism (Riverside, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1967).
Harold John Blackham (31 March 1903 – 23 January 2009) was a leading British humanist philosopher, writer and educationalist. He has been described as the “progenitor of modern humanism in Britain”.[1]
Joining the Ethical Union, Blackham drew the organisation further away from religious forms and played an important part in its formation into the British Humanist Association, becoming the BHA’s first Executive Director in 1963. He was also a founding member of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), IHEU secretary (1952–1966), and received the IHEU’s International Humanist Award in 1974, and the Special Award for Service to World Humanism in 1978. In addition he was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto.[3]
His book, Six Existentialist Thinkers, became a popular university textbook.
Bury, JB, with an historical epilogue by HJ Blackham. A History of Freedom of Thought (2001). University Press of the Pacific. ISBN 0-89875-166-7
The Future of our Past: from Ancient Greece to Global Village (1996). Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-042-8
The Fable as Literature (1985). London: Continuum International Publishing Group – Athlone. ISBN 0-485-11278-7
Education for Personal Autonomy: Inquiry into the School’s Resources for Furthering the Personal Development of Pupils (editor) (1977). London: Bedford Sq. Press. ISBN 0-7199-0937-6
Humanists and Quakers: an exchange of letters (with Harold Loukes) (1969). Friends Home Service. ISBN 0-85245-011-7
Humanism (1968). London: Penguin. (published by Harvester in hardback, 1976. ISBN 0-85527-209-0)
Religion in a Modern Society (1966). London: Constable
The reason I am featuring Arturo Herrera today is very simple. He is the best artist I can think of that illustrates where modern man had found himself today.
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Arturo Herrera
(Arturo’s work is based on chance and he is hopefully that something meaningful will bring out of it!!!!)
In this video below Arturo Herrera says, “I believe in being in the studio trying different things and just working through chance accidents...in order to get some kind of result…You know there is something in the image that keeps informing you, keeps teaching you, keeps surprising you and you can’t really put your finger on it. So you put it on the wall close to you with the hope that you will be able to solve it. It becomes your friend, your mentor, it becomes a support system to be able to say there is hope, yet you could do it…That is what keeps me going. It is possible to create an image that will have an impact. The multiplicity of images today with the internet makes the project utterly insane or irrational… If I make an image that hopefully is strong enough for some viewers then my job is done.”
Episode #061: In his Berlin studio, Arturo Herrera discusses his relationship to creating abstract collages and images. Herrera takes the process of abstraction a step further by photographing fragments of his collages, such as in the work “Untitled” (2005), a series of 80 black and white photographs. He submerges the undeveloped film in hot and cold water, coffee, and tea, creating unpredictable results when printed. Editing the photos into a grid of images, Herrera creates a work thats greater than its individual parts.
For Arturo Herrera, abstraction is a language rooted in the practice of assembling and composing fragments. Herrera collects illustrated books, comics, and paint-by-number paintings, cutting and splicing them into new forms. He also creates his own source material by fragmenting drawings, watercolors, and shapes made by applying paint directly from the tube. Herrera collages all of these elements together, pasting them together to create a new whole.
VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller and Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera & Sound: Terry Doe and Leigh Crisp. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Arturo Herrera.
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DO YOU NOW SEE WHY I HAVE FEATURED ARTURO HERRERA TODAY? HE IS LIVING OUT HIS LIFE AS AN ARTIST DISPLAYING HIS MATERIALISTIC CHANCE WORLDVIEW IN HIS ART!!!!
Let me repeat what I said that Solomon was trying to say 3000 years ago in the book of Ecclesiastes.
The Christian Philosopher Francis Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”
These two verses below take the 3 elements mentioned in a materialistic worldview (time, chance and matter) and so that is all the unbeliever can find “under the sun” without God in the picture. You will notice that these are the three elements that evolutionists point to also.
Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 is following: I have seen somthing else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brillant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.
Arturo Herrera asserted, “I believe in being in the studio trying different things and just working through chance accidents...in order to get some kind of result.”
Episode #055: Filmed in his Berlin studio, artist Arturo Herrera discusses themes of subjectivity and abstraction while drawing connections between his love of music and his hopes for how audiences come to appreciate his visual work.
For Arturo Herrera, abstraction is a language rooted in the practice of assembling and composing fragments. Herrera collects illustrated books, comics, and paint-by-number paintings, cutting and splicing them into new forms. He also creates his own source material by fragmenting drawings, watercolors, and shapes made by applying paint directly from the tube. Herrera collages all of these elements together, pasting them together to create a new whole.
Arturo Herrera is featured in the Season 3 (2005) episode “Play” of the “Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century” television series on PBS.
VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller and Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera & Sound: Terry Doe and Leigh Crisp. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Arturo Herrera. Special Thanks: Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York.
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Arturo Herrera pictured below:
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Arturo Herrera pictured below:
Arturo Herrera: Assistant Jeff Bechtel | Art21 “Exclusive”
Uploaded on Aug 7, 2009
Episode #068: Arturo Herrera’s assistant Jeff Bechtel describes the process for translating one of the artist’s complex drawings into a refined monochromatic paper collage. Filmed in Herrera’s New York studio, Bechtel discusses how cartoon sources and stock imagery become abstracted into larger systems.
Arturo Herreras work includes collage, work on paper, sculpture, relief, wall painting, photography, and felt wall-hangings. Rooted in the history of abstraction, Herreras playful work taps into the viewers unconscious, often intertwining fragments of cartoon characters with cut-out shapes and partially obscured images that evoke memory and recollection.
VIDEO | Producer Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Eve Moros Ortega. Camera: Mead Hunt. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Arturo Herrera. Special Thanks: Jeff Bechtel.
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Arturo Herrera said he took photographs of whatever was lying around in the studio. Americas Society Visual Arts Director Gabriela Rangel said of Herrera’s work: “There is a product of chance very present in the photos.” At the 2:40 point in the below film Arturo Herrera said he hired a computer programmer that created a chance order that his pictures would appear in combination with the music that was playing.
Arturo Herrera: Les Noces (The Wedding)
Uploaded on Mar 4, 2011
Watch a video of artist Arturo Herrera and Curator and Americas Society Visual Arts Director Gabriela Rangel discuss the process of putting together the exhibition Arturo Herrera: Les Noces (The Wedding), at Americas Society art gallery. The artist also gives a tour of selected pieces in the exhibition. Video produced by David Gacs.
Arturo Herrera was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1959, and lives and works in New York and Berlin, Germany. He received a BA from the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Herrera’s work includes collage, works on paper, sculpture, relief, wall painting, photography, and felt wall hangings. His work taps into the viewer’s unconscious—often intertwining fragments of cartoon characters with abstract shapes and partially obscured images that evoke memory and recollection. Using techniques of fragmentation, splicing, and re-contextualization, Herrera’s work is provocative and open-ended. For his collages, he uses found images from cartoons, coloring books, and fairy tales, combining fragments of Disney-like characters with violent and sexual imagery to make work that borders between figuration and abstraction and subverts the innocence of cartoon referents with a darker psychology. In his felt works, he cuts shapes from a piece of felt and pins the felt to the wall so that it hangs as a tangled form, resembling the drips and splatters of a Jackson Pollock painting. Herrera’s wall paintings also meld recognizable imagery with abstraction, but on an environmental scale that he compares to the qualities of dance and music. Herrera has received many awards including, among others, a Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) Fellowship. He has had solo exhibitions at Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva; Dia Center for the Arts, New York; Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City; among others. His work appeared in the Whitney Biennial (2002).
ART21: Can you clarify what you mean by [the word] chance, especially with the collages you’ve been photographing?
HERRERA: By chance, I mean (in the photo work) that I usually don’t compose the way I’m photographing. I go through and take three or four photos of the same collage, but I’m not carefully composing what the final shot will be. I’m basically shooting four or five photos in the hope that maybe one of them will work out. I don’t spend a lot of time setting up the drawings or selecting the specific fragments. I’m letting the photograph lead me into this thing.
Once the roll is done, I put it in water, and that’s where much more chance happens. The way the water seeps into the film—if it’s hot water or cold or coffee with ice cubes in it—it will affect the film and the emulsion on the film. After a week or a month there, then it’s taken to the lab, and whatever happens there will be part of the photograph.
After all the photos are done, I go through a very strict system of editing and selection. The process is based on how strong these images are, which ways they please me, and which ways they become challenging to me—and hopefully challenging to the audience. They seem to be very intimate images, and they allow you to go into this state of making connections between the fragments that you see, what they are supposed to be, and what they bring to your memory. So, it’s a fairly subjective process.
ART21: Can you say more about your system of selection?
HERRERA: The system of selection is just based on quality—your own system of quality. Going through hundreds and hundreds of images, you tend to have specific choices or preferences. If I’m happy with them or if I find they are intriguing, then I will include them. Working like this, without focusing on specific compositions when you’re photographing, leaves you with many, many photographs that don’t make the final cut. Sometimes the emulsion gets stuck, or the film gets damaged. So, I don’t really know what’s going to happen to these things until I see them printed.
ART21: What will be the final outcome for these photographs—the final work?
HERRERA: These photographs are made in a series of eighty images. I think, when you see them all together, you tend to create your own kind of viewing or journey or path or choreography. You tend to be taken by specific images, and then you start going from there, back and forth like a ping-pong ball or a pinball machine. This process becomes a very private conversation with these images. What these images tell the viewer, I don’t know; that, to me, remains somewhat secret. They’re satisfying to me, and I hope they’re satisfying to the audience.
ART21: Is there an associational narrative for you, or is it purely abstract?
HERRERA: Well, the photos deal with the history of photography, modernism, chance operation, surrealism—they’re complex in different ways. But they are also very quiet. They don’t try to undermine or criticize or pay homage; they’re just part of a tradition which I respect. And this is just my participation with these images. I believe that the dialogue with these images is both emotional and intellectual. It’s a one-to-one dialogue, and associative power or juxtaposition is the way to enter the work. As you can see, the photos deal with my own mark making and popular culture. It’s a collage, taken to a photographic level. The fragment is still there, and the juxtapositions and the references are all exploding in front of your face.
It’s kind of a silent cacophony. It’s loud but, at the same time, quiet. I’m interested in this kind of ambiguity about the images. They’re clearly from a tradition, they’re clearly based on fragments, and they’re being juxtaposed. They’re being forced to be together, there’s chance operations, and yet they’re just abstractions. Now, is that pertinent today? I don’t know, but I want to explore the possibility because abstraction is a fairly young language.
ART21: How did your work change when you went to school in Chicago?
HERRERA: I spent eight years traveling and working before that. I traveled in Europe and went back to Venezuela. It was a period of reflecting on what had happened in school and reflecting on what I wanted to do. I decided to go to graduate school in Chicago. That allowed for a very critical training. I think my interest in popular culture, cartoons and signs developed because these elements were easily accessible. They’re inexpensive. They were all around in stores—Salvation Army, Goodwill. So, you could actually make works very cheaply using glue, scissors, and paper. So, that allowed me to be able to cut and find fragments that were richer than the actual pages where they came from. Juxtaposing those fragments created other images with surprising effects. So then, I kept going.
ART21: But doesn’t collage mean “to paste,” not “to cut”?
HERRERA: To be able to paste two or three pieces of paper, you have to achieve that through cutting. But I think the most essential part of collage is imposing or juxtaposing—to glue a piece of paper on top of another piece of paper. So, that is the essential aspect of collage. Cutting allows you to concentrate on the essence of the fragment that you want to isolate. But collaging means gluing, that’s really the most important thing. That’s when the images are actually formed, when they’re actually joined together for good.
ART21: Can you talk about fragmentation and the final image?
HERRERA: I’m interested in how an image that is so well composed and so clear and so objective—made out of these disparate fragments—can be glued, forced together to create an image that will have a different reading from what the fragments said. Both sides are part of the image’s ambiguity, of not knowing exactly what I’m looking at, and then the clarity of the way it was composed. This is something intriguing to me.
ART21: How much are you directing the viewer in your work?
HERRERA: You’re on your own when you look at these images. Fragments offer a point of entry that you can identify in the piece. Once you’re there, you are in a complete process of association. And that process is completely different to another person’s process. So, I’m not directing you towards a specific reading. You will be able to form whatever information you want from this image because it allows this field of abstraction, with some subjectivity, and then the objectivity of the image is there, too. So, you shift back and forth without any kind of order or didactic direction from me telling you what to do or how to look at the image.
ART21: What about the impact the scale of your work makes on the viewer?
HERRERA: The collages represent a very intimate scale and actually indicate the way I work and the scale of the table that I work on. I think the scale of the collages allows for an intimate connection. And seeing them in series allows them to inform back and forth. The intimacy of the scale is important because when the wall paintings occur, it’s a completely different situation.
ART21: What propels you to come to the studio every day?
HERRERA: Coming to the studio is time for discovery. As Stravinsky said, “Unless you work for many hours, nothing is going to happen.” So, the muse of invention doesn’t exist; you just have to work. It’s a job, and you just have to come. For me, usually, it happens at the last minute of the last hour: I’m utterly exhausted, and I thought it was a wasted day, and then something happens. So, I believe in just being in the studio, trying different things, playing, experimenting.
Working through chance accidents, it’s hard to be able to get some kind of result. Since I don’t work through specific ideas, I basically have to sit and come up with something. The only way to do that is just to come into the studio and get your hands dirty, get the X-Acto blade cutting paper. Unless I work, I don’t find anything. The more time I spend here, the better.
ART21: But that’s not what propels you to be here.
HERRERA: Right. I come to the studio to be able to create an image that will have a certain impact. All artists look at other artists from the past and admire some artists greatly because they had the courage to try—the power to be able to go into this other scale, or this combination of colors, or what have you. To be able to join them eventually is, first of all, a challenge. You want to get there (maybe I will never get there), but it just keeps you going—that you might be able to participate in this dance with these other people.
If I make an image that is strong enough or generous enough to some viewers, then my job is done. I’m happy with the image; I feel it’s a strong image. And, if it actually provides some kind of emotional and intellectual nourishment or idea to the viewer, then my job is done. That’s what keeps me going.
Is it possible to create an image that will have any impact now, with the multiplicity of images today, with the Internet and digital cameras and film and video? I think there are still images that people have not seen and that will be powerful enough to be able to send different messages. What kind of images these are, I don’t know. I’m trying to get there; I’m trying to find them. I don’t know what they look like. So, I come to the studio to dissect them from other fragments.
___________ The Fine Tuning Argument for the Existence of God from Antony Flew! Imagine entering a hotel room on your next vacation. The CD player on the bedside table is softly playing a track from your favorite recording. The framed print over the bed is identical to the image that hangs over the fireplace at […]
_____________ Mark Oppenheimer of Time Magazine claims Antony Flew was convinced by PSEUDOSCIENCE that God exists!!! Below you will read: ”There Is a God” is perhaps the handiest primer ever written on the science (many would say pseudoscience) of religious belief. Regis Nicoll does a good job of refuting the claim that Flew was manipulated by […]
________ During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer and challenge them with the evidence for the Bible’s historicity and the claims of the gospel. Usually I would send them a cassette tape of Adrian Rogers’ messages “6 reasons I […]
During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer and challenge them with the evidence for the Bible’s historicity and the claims of the gospel. Usually I would send them a cassette tape of Adrian Rogers’ messages “6 reasons I know […]
________________________________ Discussion (1 of 3): Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas Uploaded on Sep 22, 2010 A discussion with Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas. This was held at Westminster Chapel March, 2008 ______________________ During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian […]
During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer and challenge them with the evidence for the Bible’s historicity and the claims of the gospel. Usually I would send them a cassette tape of Adrian Rogers’ messages “6 reasons I […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
Milton Friedman in 1999 interview, “The one thing that’s missing, but that will soon be developed, is a reliable e-cash, a method whereby on the Internet you can transfer funds from A to B without A knowing B or B knowing A, the way I can take a $20 bill hand it over to you and then there’s no record of where it came from”
In 2008, Bitcoin was mysteriously introduced to the world in an obscure, technical paper written under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. By late 2013, the financial press was filled with reportage on Bitcoin and its dramatic price increase.
Well ahead of Satoshi Nakamoto, Nobelist Milton Friedman, champion of free market economics and noted expert on money and banking, anticipated the coming of digital currencies, and foresaw the potential impacts that they would have on finance and economics.
I think that the Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government. The one thing that’s missing, but that will soon be developed, is a reliable e-cash, a method whereby on the Internet you can transfer funds from A to B without A knowing B or B knowing A. The way I can take a $20 bill hand it over to you and then there’s no record of where it came from.
You may get that without knowing who I am. That kind of thing will develop on the Internet and that will make it even easier for people using the Internet. Of course, it has its negative side. It means the gangsters, the people who are engaged in illegal transactions, will also have an easier way to carry on their business.
Prof. Friedman’s anticipation of Bitcoin is truly remarkable. He even understood the concept well enough to anticipate something like the Silk Road scandal involving illegal Bitcoin transactions.
In April 2013, Nathaniel Popper of The New York Times reported on Bitcoin in an article titled “Digital Money is Gaining Champions in the Real World”. In his reportage, Popper asked me if I thought Bitcoin had the makings of a speculative mania like the 17th century Dutch tulip bulb frenzy. My response was clear and unambiguous: “To say highly speculative would be the understatement of the century.”
Subsequently, the price action in Bitcoin confirms my diagnosis (see the following chart). In January 2013, one could buy a Bitcoin for about $13. By late November, one Bitcoin would have set a buyer back over $1100. And what about Bitcoin’s price volatility? As shown in the chart, Bitcoin’s volatility is truly fantastic.
While the price currently fluctuates around $600, Bitcoin remains far from secure. Serious discrepancies in price exist even between exchanges. For example, the price of a Bitcoin on the Mt. Gox exchange has fallen by over 50% in the past week, while the price of the exact same Bitcoin on the BitStamp exchange has fallen by only 3% in the same time period.
The federal government is not doing a good job at almost anything that it does. When it expands then it just takes away our freedom and our money more than it has in the past. This trend must stop. Below are some wise words and warnings from Milton Friedman Below are some videos and quotes […]
Stearns Speaks on House Floor in Support of Balanced Budget Amendment Uploaded by RepCliffStearns on Nov 18, 2011 Speaking on House floor in support of Balanced Budget Resolution, 11/18/2011 ___________ Below are some of the main proposals of Milton Friedman. I highly respected his work. David J. Theroux said this about Milton Friedman’s view concerning […]
The 4 Ways to Spend Money by Milton Friedman Uploaded by Sidewinder77 on Aug 26, 2006 1. You spend your own money on yourself. 2. You spend your own money on someone else. 3. You spend someone else’s money on yourself. 4. You spend someone else’s money on someone else. ___________ Will Rogers has a […]
In 1980 I read the book FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman and it really enlightened me a tremendous amount. I suggest checking out these episodes and transcripts of Milton Friedman’s film series FREE TO CHOOSE: “The Failure of Socialism” and “What is wrong with our schools?” and “Created Equal” and From Cradle to Grave, […]
In 1980 I read the book FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman and it really enlightened me a tremendous amount. I suggest checking out these episodes and transcripts of Milton Friedman’s film series FREE TO CHOOSE: “The Failure of Socialism” and “What is wrong with our schools?” and “Created Equal” and From Cradle to Grave, […]
In 1980 I read the book FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman and it really enlightened me a tremendous amount. I suggest checking out these episodes and transcripts of Milton Friedman’s film series FREE TO CHOOSE: “The Failure of Socialism” and “What is wrong with our schools?” and “Created Equal” and From Cradle to Grave, […]
In 1980 I read the book FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman and it really enlightened me a tremendous amount. I suggest checking out these episodes and transcripts of Milton Friedman’s film series FREE TO CHOOSE: “The Failure of Socialism” and “What is wrong with our schools?” and “Created Equal” and From Cradle to Grave, […]
In 1980 I read the book FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman and it really enlightened me a tremendous amount. I suggest checking out these episodes and transcripts of Milton Friedman’s film series FREE TO CHOOSE: “The Failure of Socialism” and “What is wrong with our schools?” and “Created Equal” and From Cradle to Grave, […]
Friedman on Reagan Uploaded by YAFTV on Aug 19, 2009 Nobel Laureate Dr. Milton Friedman discusses the principles of Ronald Reagan during this talk for students at Young America’s Foundation’s 25th annual National Conservative Student Conference _______________ Passing the Balanced Budget Amendment would be what the founding fathers would have wanted. Look at what my […]
In 1980 I read the book FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman and it really enlightened me a tremendous amount. I suggest checking out these episodes and transcripts of Milton Friedman’s film series FREE TO CHOOSE: “The Failure of Socialism” and “What is wrong with our schools?” and “Created Equal” and From Cradle to Grave, […]
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Arturo Herrera, “Keep in Touch (from set #4),” detail, 2004. Installation view at Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, 2005. Production still from the “Art in the Twenty-First Century” Season 3 episode, “Play,” 2005. Artwork courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York. Production still © Art21, Inc. 2005.
While the price currently fluctuates around $600, Bitcoin remains far from secure. Serious discrepancies in price exist even between exchanges. For example, the price of a Bitcoin on the Mt. Gox exchange has fallen by over 50% in the past week, while the price of the exact same Bitcoin on the BitStamp exchange has fallen by only 3% in the same time period.
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