What should the Republicans do first? Here are some great suggestions from George Will!!! I think all conservatives will agree with these fine proposals found in this article. Milton Friedman couldn’t have said it any better.
Unlike the dog that chased the car until, to its consternation, he caught it, Republicans know what to do with what they have caught. Having completed their capture of control of the legislative branch, they should start with the following six measures concerning practical governance and constitutional equilibrium:
● Abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This creature of the labyrinthine Dodd-Frank law violates John Locke’s dictum: “The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands. . . . The power of the legislative . . . [is] only to make laws, and not to make legislators.” The CFPB is empowered to “declare,” with no legislative guidance or institutional inhibitions, that certain business practices are “abusive.” It also embodies progressivism’s authoritarianism by being, unlike any entity Congress has created since 1789, untethered from all oversight mechanisms: Its funding, “determined by the director,” comes from the Federal Reserve.
● Repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This expression of the progressive mind is an artifact of the Affordable Care Act and may be the most anti-constitutional measure ever enacted. It certainly violates the first words of the first section of the first article of the Constitution: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress.” The board’s purported function is to achieve the act’s purpose of cost-containment by reducing Medicare spending. When the IPAB’s 15 presidential appointees make what the Affordable Care Act calls a “legislative proposal” limiting reimbursements to doctors, this proposal automaticallybecomes law unless Congress passes a similar measure cutting Medicare spending. Under this constitutional travesty, an executive-branch agency makes laws unless the legislative branch enacts alternative means of achieving the executive agency’s aim. The Affordable Care Act stipulates that no measure for the abolition of the board can be introduced before 2017 or after Feb. 1, 2017, and must be enacted by Aug. 15 of that year. So, one Congress presumed to bind all subsequent Congresses in order to achieve progressivism’s consistent aim — abolishing limited government by emancipating presidents from restraint by the separation of powers. This impertinence by the 111th Congress requires a firm rebuke by the 114th.
● Repeal the Affordable Care Act’s tax on medical devices. This $29 billion blow to an industry that provides more than 400,000 jobs is levied not on firms’ profits but on gross revenues, and it comes on top of the federal (the developed world’s highest) corporate income tax, plus state and local taxes. Enough Democrats support repeal that a presidential veto might be overridden.
● Mandate completion of the nuclear waste repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The signature achievement of Harry Reid’s waning career has been blocking this project, on which approximately $15 billion has been spent. So, rather than nuclear waste being safely stored in the mountain’s 40 miles of tunnels 1,000 feet underground atop 1,000 feet of rock, more than 160 million Americans live within 75 miles of one or more of the 121 locations where 70,000 tons of waste are stored.
● Pass the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. It would require that any regulation with at least a $100 million annual impact on the economy — there are approximately 200 of them in the pipeline — be approved without amendments by a joint resolution of Congress and signed by the president. “In effect,” writes the Hudson Institute’s Christopher DeMuth, “major agency rules would become legislative proposals with fast-track privileges.” By requiring legislative complicity in especially heavy federal burdens, REINS is an ingredient in the recipe for resuscitating Congress, which has been far too eager to cede legislative responsibilities to the executive branch.
Such measures may be too granular to satisfy the grandiose aspirations of those conservatives who, sharing progressives’ impatience with our constitutional architecture, aspire to have their way completely while wielding just one branch of government. But if, as is likely, the result of Congress doing these and similar things is a blizzard of presidential vetoes, even this would be constructive. The 2016 presidential election would follow a two-year demonstration of how reactionary progressivism is in opposing changes to the nation’s trajectory. Congressional actions provoking executive rejections would frame the argument about progressivism. And as Margaret Thatcher advised, first you win the argument, then you win the vote.
We need to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment!!!! It is obvious to me that if President Obama gets his hands on more money then he will continue to spend away our children’s future. He has already taken the national debt from 11 trillion to 16 trillion in just 4 years. Over, and over, and over, […]
___________ President Bush Will Leave Strong Pro-Life Legacy on Abortion, Bioethics Issues by Steven Ertelt | WASHINGTON, DC | LIFENEWS.COM | 1/16/09 9:00 AM President Bush Will Leave Strong Pro-Life Legacy on Abortion, Bioethics Issues by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor January 16, 2009 Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – Americans may have their dispute with President Bush […]
___________________ Without God We are Nothing 0 0 0 Google +0 Delicious0 by Cardinal George Pell Description: Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, defends belief in a Creator God in a lecture for the Festival of Dangerous Ideas on October 4, 2009. Responding to the argument of atheist Christopher Hitchens, the cardinal invoked scientists such as Albert Einstein and […]
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, and – Power of the Market. In this episode “The Tyranny of Controls” Milton Friedman shows how government planning and detailed control of economic activity lessens productive innovation and consumer choice.
In this episode Milton Friedman asserts:
I think the United States would prosper in a way that is hardly imaginable today. It would be an example and a beacon to the rest of the world. What kind of sense does it make, here we are supposedly the leaders of the world. We are the ones who promote freedom, and free enterprise, and individual initiative. And what do we do? We force puny little Hong Kong to impose limits, restrictions on its exports at tariffs, in order to protect our textile workers. We go to Japan, and we say to Japan, “For God sakes, you got to limit the number of television sets you come out.” Instead of doing that, we ought to be setting an example to the world, and if we set the kind of an example to the world that Great Britain set to the world in the 19th century, it would be a tremendous __ it would have a tremendous impact, it would strengthen our moral position in the world, it would strengthen our ethical position in the world.
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Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose – Ep.2 (6/7) – The Tyranny of Control
McKENZIE: How close are you to what Deason was saying a moment ago in this area? He would seem to be arguing with you that there was a responsibility to make competition work.
FRIEDMAN: The responsibility is to set up a framework of laws and of arrangements, under which competition will flourish. And the most __
McKENZIE: Inevitably flourish? I mean, or __
FRIEDMAN: Well, so far as I know, I don’t know of any case in history in which monopolies have been able to maintain themselves for very long without having government assistance directly come in on their side. The trade union monopolies that Mr. Deason represents would never have the kind of power they do now if it weren’t for the special privileges which government has granted to them. I can perfectly well understand his being in favor of such action, of antitrust action by the government, because it really is pro-monopoly action, in the main.
DEASON: Why were those exemptions to monopoly laws given to unions?
FRIEDMAN: Because of the political power of unions, of course. I’m not questioning that.
DEASON: and because __ and because of the tremendous imbalance of power of companies at the time that unions were getting their start.
McKENZIE: There’s one concluding idea toward the end of your script that I’d like to look at, because it seemed to me to be most provocative. You talked about the need for constitutional restraints on governments to prevent them interfering in foreign exchange free markets, and in foreign trade. Now what have you in mind, Milton, when you say “constitutional restraints”?
FRIEDMAN: I __ no doubt what I have in mind if I, if I could persuade the public, I would like it to adopt a constitutional amendment strictly parallel to the constitutional prohibition in the text of the constitution, against the central government __ I’m sorry, against state governments imposing tariffs on imports. I would like to have a constitutional amendment which would read, “The Congress shall not impose any taxes, any taxes on imports, or give any subsidies to exports, except such as may be necessary,” I think the wording of the constitution is that the states are permitted to do it if it’s necessary for inspection. That’s the excuse under which California inspects you every time you drive past to see whether you’re carrying any plants or fruits or vegetables.
DEASON: Milton, let me ask you a question: How long do you think that the United States would survive if the United States enacted what you would like to have?
FRIEDMAN: I think the United States would prosper in a way that is hardly imaginable today. It would be an example and a beacon to the rest of the world. What kind of sense does it make, here we are supposedly the leaders of the world. We are the ones who promote freedom, and free enterprise, and individual initiative. And what do we do? We force puny little Hong Kong to impose limits, restrictions on its exports at tariffs, in order to protect our textile workers. We go to Japan, and we say to Japan, “For God sakes, you got to limit the number of television sets you come out.” Instead of doing that, we ought to be setting an example to the world, and if we set the kind of an example to the world that Great Britain set to the world in the 19th century, it would be a tremendous __ it would have a tremendous impact, it would strengthen our moral position in the world, it would strengthen our ethical position in the world. Instead of giving money to underdeveloped countries to produce products which we then refuse to buy and don’t let them export to us, we would be saying to the rest of the world, “If you produce anything, if you can produce anything and have a market here, come, we’re delighted to buy it, and we’ll produce things for you to buy.” That’s the kind of a pattern I would like to see the United States establish.
McKENZIE: Would your members buy that?
DEASON: Never. That’s a __
FRIEDMAN: Never is a long word, sir.
DEASON: Yes, you’re right.
FRIEDMAN: __ and you must distinguish between __
DEASON: And one should never say never.
FRIEDMAN: Your union officials would not buy it. But I am not sure your members wouldn’t.
DEASON: My members would not. No. My members would never buy it either. I cannot conceive of the United States setting itself up to become a target for the rest of the world.
FRIEDMAN: It’s not a target.
DEASON: There would be absolutely nothing that would require or compel any other country to enact any reciprocal agreements relative to tariffs__
FRIEDMAN: That’s right.
DEASON: __ and until such time as they have succeeded in dumping in the United States __ and I used dumping in the broadest sense of the word __ any and every product, either government subsidized by a foreign government, either put there because of multinational corporations manufacturing facilities in a foreign country, until they have succeeded in absolutely draining us dry __
FRIEDMAN: Draining us dry of what?
DEASON: Of every __ of every asset.
FRIEDMAN: How?
DEASON: Of every __
FRIEDMAN: What would they do with the dollars they got?
DEASON: They’d probably buy up, as they are now, as they __
FRIEDMAN: If they bought up __
RUMSFELD: The choice farmland.
FRIEDMAN: Yes. Yes.
McKENZIE: Let’s broaden this. On this very argument, now and a constitutional amendment argument. We’ve learned from our union friend he would __ can’t sell it and won’t sell it. Would business buy it?
RUMSFELD: Oh, no! They __ speaking __ (Several people talking at once.)
RUMSFELD: I’m not saying whether I’d buy it. No, no, but if business would help, which is the question. No, when I __ I speak not as a businessman, but as an ex-government employee, whenever proposals like that came up, one of the first things people see happen is government __ business and labor come in in lockstep, saying, “Horrors, horrors, the sky is falling.” There’s a commonality of interests there and people get used to what is, they get terribly conservative, and they know how to work the system the way it exists, and particularly the big unions and the big business, and they get very satisfied with it, they can manage it pretty well, and any time you try to unravel any kind of regulation or restriction or government intrusion, they’re philosophically for it, but in the practical world, they don’t want you to change the drill, they just figured out how to work this. Why should you then change it and make it all the more complicated. No, I think you’d get a good deal of reaction, just like you did out of the steel company in your television show.
McKENZIE: And what would the international reaction, do you think, as an international economist. Supposing Milton got his amendment, constitutional amendment, which had that effect, how would other countries react to it?
Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 1-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms. I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
Worse still, America’s depression was to become worldwide because of what lies behind these doors. This is the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Inside is the largest horde of gold in the world. Because the world was on a gold standard in 1929, these vaults, where the U.S. gold was stored, […]
George Eccles: Well, then we called all our employees together. And we told them to be at the bank at their place at 8:00 a.m. and just act as if nothing was happening, just have a smile on their face, if they could, and me too. And we have four savings windows and we […]
Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a Crisis. part 1 FREE TO CHOOSE: Anatomy of Crisis Friedman Delancy Street in New York’s lower east side, hardly one of the city’s best known sites, yet what happened in this street nearly 50 years ago continues to effect all of us today. […]
Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 3 of transcript and video) Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 3 of 6. Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: If it […]
Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 2 of 6. Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: Groups of concerned parents and teachers decided to do something about it. They used private funds to take over empty stores and they […]
Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 1 of 6. Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: Friedman: These youngsters are beginning another day at one of America’s public schools, Hyde Park High School in Boston. What happens when […]
Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 3 of transcript and video) Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other […]
Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 2 of transcript and video) Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are […]
Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan Liberals like President Obama (and John Brummett) want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are not present. This is a seven part series. […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 3 OF 7 Worse still, America’s depression was to become worldwide because of what lies behind these doors. This is the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Inside […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. For the past 7 years Maureen Ramsey has had to buy food and clothes for her family out of a government handout. For the whole of that time, her husband, Steve, hasn’t […]
Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 1 of 7) Volume 4 – From Cradle to Grave Abstract: Since the Depression years of the 1930s, there has been almost continuous expansion of governmental efforts to provide for people’s welfare. First, there was a tremendous expansion of public works. The Social Security Act […]
_________________________ Pt3 Nowadays there’s a considerable amount of traffic at this border. People cross a little more freely than they use to. Many people from Hong Kong trade in China and the market has helped bring the two countries closer together, but the barriers between them are still very real. On this side […]
Aside from its harbor, the only other important resource of Hong Kong is people __ over 4_ million of them. Like America a century ago, Hong Kong in the past few decades has been a haven for people who sought the freedom to make the most of their own abilities. Many of them are […]
“FREE TO CHOOSE” 1: The Power of the Market (Milton Friedman) Free to Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 4:20:46 PM by Choose Ye This Day FREE TO CHOOSE: The Power of the Market Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The Canarce Indians […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life.
“Most of the founding fathers of this nation … built the worldview of this nation on the authority of the Word of God,” Ken Ham said. “Because of that, there have been reminders in this culture concerning God’s Word, the God of creation.”
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Debating the Founding Fathers with Ark Times Bloggers Part 2
Contemporary post-modern critics (including President Obama) who assert that America is not a Christian nation always refrain from offering any definition of what the term “Christian nation” means. So what is an accurate definition of that term as demonstrated by the American experience?
Contrary to what critics imply, a Christian nation is not one in which all citizens are Christians, or the laws require everyone to adhere to Christian theology, or all leaders are Christians, or any other such superficial measurement. As Supreme Court Justice David Brewer (1837-1910) explained:
[I]n what sense can [America] be called a Christian nation? Not in the sense that Christianity is the established religion or that the people are in any manner compelled to support it. On the contrary, the Constitution specifically provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Neither is it Christian in the sense that all its citizens are either in fact or name Christians. On the contrary, all religions have free scope within our borders. Numbers of our people profess other religions, and many reject all. Nor is it Christian in the sense that a profession of Christianity is a condition of holding office or otherwise engaging in public service, or essential to recognition either politically or socially. In fact, the government as a legal organization is independent of all religions. Nevertheless, we constantly speak of this republic as a Christian nation – in fact, as the leading Christian nation of the world. 8
So, if being a Christian nation is not based on any of the above criterion, then what makes America a Christian nation? According to Justice Brewer, America was “of all the nations in the world . . . most justly called a Christian nation” because Christianity “has so largely shaped and molded it.” 9
Constitutional law professor Edward Mansfield (1801-1880) similarly acknowledged:
In every country, the morals of a people – whatever they may be – take their form and spirit from their religion. For example, the marriage of brothers and sisters was permitted among the Egyptians because such had been the precedent set by their gods, Isis and Osiris. So, too, the classic nations celebrated the drunken rites of Bacchus. Thus, too, the Turk has become lazy and inert because dependent upon Fate, as taught by the Koran. And when in recent times there arose a nation [i.e., France] whose philosophers [e.g. Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Helvetius, etc.] discovered there was no God and no religion, the nation was thrown into that dismal case in which there was no law and no morals. . . . In the United States, Christianity is the original, spontaneous, and national religion. 10
Founding Father and U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall agreed:
[W]ith us, Christianity and religion are identified. It would be strange, indeed, if with such a people our institutions did not presuppose Christianity and did not often refer to it and exhibit relations with it. 11
Christianity is the religion that shaped America and made her what she is today. In fact, historically speaking, it can be irrefutably demonstrated that Biblical Christianity in America produced many of the cherished traditions still enjoyed today, including:
A republican rather than a theocratic form of government;
The institutional separation of church and state (as opposed to today’s enforced institutional secularization of church and state);
Protection for religious toleration and the rights of conscience;
A distinction between theology and behavior, thus allowing the incorporation into public policy of religious principles that promote good behavior but which do not enforce theological tenets (examples of this would include religious teachings such as the Good Samaritan, The Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, etc., all of which promote positive civil behavior but do not impose ecclesiastical rites); and
A free-market approach to religion, thus ensuring religious diversity.
Consequently, a Christian nation as demonstrated by the American experience is a nation founded upon Christian and Biblical principles, whose values, society, and institutions have largely been shaped by those principles. This definition was reaffirmed by American legal scholars and historians for generations 12 but is widely ignored by today’s revisionists.
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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. There have […]
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY 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 […]
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]
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 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 […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY 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 […]
Many times in the past these secular humanists have suggested books for me to read and I have made it my practice to take them up on that and read the books they suggest and then I send my reviews back to them to consider.
One trend I have noticed among modern scholars and that have become more and more pessimistic. (No where is this demonstrated better than in the beginning of the episode THE AGE OF NONREASON shown below. Also Francis Schaeffer in his book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? points out that Steven Weinberg has discussed the issue of the meaningless and pointlessness of life.
How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason)
#02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer
10 Worldview and Truth
Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100
Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR
Many modern artists are left in this point of desperation that Schaeffer points out and it reminds me of the despair that Solomon speaks of in Ecclesiastes. Christian scholar Ravi Zacharias has 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.” THIS IS EXACT POINT SCHAEFFER SAYS SECULAR ARTISTS ARE PAINTING FROM TODAY BECAUSE THEY BELIEVED ARE A RESULT OF MINDLESS CHANCE.
An overwhelming number of modern thinkers agree that seeing the universe and man from a humanist base leads to meaninglessness, both for the universe and for man – not just mankind in general but for each of us as individuals. Professor Steven Weinberg of Harvard University and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory has written a book entitled The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (1976). Here he explains, as clearly as probably anyone has ever done, the modern materialistic view of the universe and its origin.
But when his explanation is finished and he is looking down at the earth from an airplane, as Weinberg writes, “It is very hard to realize that this all is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe … [which] has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”86
When Weinberg says that the universe seems more “comprehensible,” he is, of course, referring to our greater understanding of the physical universe through the advance of science. But it is an understanding, notice, within, a materialistic framework, which considers the universe solely in terms of physics and chemistry – simply machinery. Here lies the irony. It is comprehension of a sort, but it is like giving a blind person sight, only to remove anything seeable. As we heard Woody Allen saying earlier, such a view of reality is “absolutely stupefying in its terror, and it renders anyone’s accomplishments meaningless.”
So, to the person who wants to be left alone without explanations for the big questions, we must say very gently, “Look at what you are left alone with.” This is not merely rhetoric. As the decades of this century have slipped by, more and more have said the same thing as Steven Weinberg and Woody Allen. It has become an obvious thing to say. The tremendous optimism of the nineteenth century, which stemmed from the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, has gradually ebbed away.
If everything “faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat,” all things are meaningless. This is the first problem, the first form of pollution. The second is just as bad.
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Rice Broocks in his book GOD’S NOT DEAD quoted the American philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig:
My claim is that if there is no God then meaning, value, and purpose are ultimately human illusions. They’re just in our heads. If atheism is true, then life is really objectively meaningless, valueless, and purposeless, despite our subjective beliefs to the contrary,” (William Lane Craig, ON GUARD: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision [Colorodo Springs: David C. Cook, 2010], 30).
Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?)
Back in September of 2014 I had a chance to correspond with Nobel Prize Harold Kroto and he used this quote from his friend Steven Weinberg,“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” I DO AGREE WITH A PORTION OF THAT ASSERTION BUT IT SEEMS THAT MUSLIMS KILL A LOT MORE PEOPLE TODAY THAN CHRISTIANS. (SAM HARRIS EVEN POINTED THAT OUT RECENTLY ON BILL MAHER’S SHOW.)Then he gave me a link that gave more quotes from Steven Weinberg and here are some of those quotes and my initial reaction to some of them (From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1971-1980, Editor Stig Lundqvist, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1992):
“I have a friend — or had a friend, now dead — Abdus Salam, a very devout Muslim, who was trying to bring science into the universities in the Gulf states and he told me that he had a terrible time because, although they were very receptive to technology, they felt that science would be a corrosive to religious belief, and they were worried about it… and damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive of religious belief, and it’s a good thing too.”
― Steven Weinberg
“If there is no point in the universe that we discover by the methods of science, there is a point that we can give the universe by the way we live, by loving each other, by discovering things about nature, by creating works of art. And that—in a way, although we are not the stars in a cosmic drama, if the only drama we’re starring in is one that we are making up as we go along, it is not entirely ignoble that faced with this unloving, impersonal universe we make a little island of warmth and love and science and art for ourselves. That’s not an entirely despicable role for us to play.”Steven Weinberg (I was privileged to have the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan during the last year of his life and in that correspondence I answered back his letter with the assertion that mankind was put on this earth by God with a special purpose. We are precious, but even though Jodie Foster makes that claim in the movie CONTACT which Sagan wrote, the secular worldview does not in anywhere support that conclusion.)
One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.Steven Weinberg (Although Charles Darwin did lead science that direction, Dr. H. Fritz Schaefer confronted the assertion that a scientist cannot believe in God in an excellent article. )
“The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy. ”
― Steven Weinberg
“It does not matter whether you win or lose, what matters is whether I win or lose!”
― Steven Weinberg
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1979
Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, Steven Weinberg
I was born in 1933 in New York City to Frederick and Eva Weinberg. My early inclination toward science received encouragement from my father, and by the time I was 15 or 16 my interests had focused on theoretical physics.
I received my undergraduate degree from Cornell in 1954, and then went for a year of graduate study to the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen (now the Niels Bohr Institute). There, with the help of David Frisch and Gunnar Källén. I began to do research in physics. I then returned to the U.S. to complete my graduate studies at Princeton. My Ph.D thesis, with Sam Treiman as adviser, was on the application of renormalization theory to the effects of strong interactions in weak interaction processes.
After receiving my Ph.D. in 1957, I worked at Columbia and then from 1959 to 1966 at Berkeley. My research during this period was on a wide variety of topics – high energy behavior of Feynman graphs, second-class weak interaction currents, broken symmetries, scattering theory, muon physics, etc. – topics chosen in many cases because I was trying to teach myself some area of physics. My active interest in astrophysics dates from 1961-62; I wrote some papers on the cosmic population of neutrinos and then began to write a book, Gravitation and Cosmology, which was eventually completed in 1971. Late in 1965 I began my work on current algebra and the application to the strong interactions of the idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking.
From 1966 to 1969, on leave from Berkeley, I was Loeb Lecturer at Harvard and then visiting professor at M.I.T. In 1969 I accepted a professorship in the Physics Department at M.I.T., then chaired by Viki Weisskopf. It was while I was a visitor to M.I.T. in 1967 that my work on broken symmetries, current algebra, and renormalization theory turned in the direction of the unification of weak and electromagnetic interactions. In 1973, when Julian Schwinger left Harvard, I was offered and accepted his chair there as Higgins Professor of Physics, together with an appointment as Senior Scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
My work during the 1970’s has been mainly concerned with the implications of the unified theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions, with the development of the related theory of strong interactions known as quantum chromodynamics, and with steps toward the unification of all interactions.
In 1982 I moved to the physics and astronomy departments of the University of Texas at Austin, as Josey Regental Professor of Science. I met my wife Louise when we were undergraduates at Cornell, and we were married in 1954. She is now a professor of law. Our daughter Elizabeth was born in Berkeley in 1963.
J.I.PACKER WROTE OF SCHAEFFER, “His communicative style was not that of acautious 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.”
Steven Weinberg here in this video below does come down more critical on the violence brought on by Muslim radicals versus the political correct view that Islam is an religion of peace while Christianity has all the problems. At the end of this video he says “I don’t like God.”
Steven Weinberg on Atheism
Uploaded on Jul 31, 2011
According to atheist physicist Steven Weinburg, most scientists don’t think much about religion — they don’t think it’s worth thinking about. But Steven Weinburg does think about it and in a 2003 interview with BBC’s Jonathan Miller he gave his view on a number of things. Why are people religious, is the U.S. too religious, do Americans equate religion with patriotism, is truth important in religion, does our moral sense come from religion, is religion a good thing and does religion conflict with science? This video is edited from the original 29 minutes and does not have the annoying text over.
About the only solution the atheist can offer is that we face the absurdity of life and live bravely. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell, for example, believed that we have no choice but to build our lives upon “the firm foundation of unyielding despair.” Only by recognizing that the world really is a terrible place can we successfully come to terms with life. Camus said that we should honestly recognize life’s absurdity and then live in love for one another.
The fundamental problem with this solution, however, is that it’s impossible to live consistently and happily within the framework of such a worldview. If you live consistently, you will not be happy; if you live happily, it is only because you are not consistent.
Francis Schaeffer has explained this point well. Modern man, says Schaeffer, resides in a two-story universe. In the lower story is the finite world without God; here life is absurd, as we have seen. In the upper story are meaning, value, and purpose. Now modern man lives in the lower story because he believes there is no God. But he cannot live happily in such an absurd world; therefore, he continually makes leaps of faith into the upper story to affirm meaning, value, and purpose, even though he has no right to, since he does not believe in God.
Let’s look again, then, at each of the three areas in which we saw that life was absurd without God, to see how difficult it is to live consistently and happily with an atheistic worldview.
First, the area of meaning. We saw that without God, life has no meaning. Yet philosophers continue to live as though life does have meaning. For example, Sartre argued that one may create meaning for his life by freely choosing to follow a certain course of action. Sartre himself chose Marxism.
Now this is totally inconsistent. It is inconsistent to say life is objectively absurd and then to say you may create meaning for your life. If life is really absurd, then you’re trapped in the lower story. To try to create meaning in life represents a leap to the upper story. But Sartre has no basis for this leap. Sartre’s program is actually an exercise in self-delusion. For the universe doesn’t really acquire a meaning just because I happen to give it one. This is easy to see: Suppose I give the universe one meaning, and you give it another. Who’s right? The answer, of course, is neither one. For the universe without God remains objectively meaningless, no matter how we happen to regard it. Sartre is really saying, “Let’s pretend the universe has meaning.” And this is just fooling yourself.
The point is this: If God does not exist, then life is objectively meaningless; but man cannot live consistently and happily knowing that life is meaningless; so in order to be happy he pretends life has meaning. But this is, of course, entirely inconsistent—for without God, man and the universe are without any real significance.
Turn now to the problem of value. Here is where the most blatant inconsistencies occur. First of all, atheistic humanists are totally inconsistent in affirming the traditional values of love and brotherhood. Camus has been rightly criticized for inconsistently holding both to the absurdity of life and the ethics of human love and brotherhood. The view that there are no values is logically incompatible with affirming the values of love and brotherhood. Bertrand Russell, too, was inconsistent. For though he was an atheist, he was an outspoken social critic, denouncing war and restrictions on sexual freedom. Russell admitted that he could not live as though ethical values were simply a matter of personal taste, and that he therefore found his own views “incredible.” “I do not know the solution,” he confessed.6
The point is that if there is no God, then objective right and wrong do not exist. As Dostoyevsky said, “All things are permitted.” But man cannot live this way. So he makes a leap of faith and affirms values anyway. And when he does so, he reveals the inadequacy of a world without God.
The horror of a world devoid of value was brought home to me with new intensity several years ago as I watched a BBC television documentary called The Gathering. It concerned the reunion of survivors of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, where they rediscovered lost friendships and shared their experiences. One former prisoner, a nurse, told of how she was made the gynecologist at Auschwitz. She observed that pregnant women were grouped together by the soldiers under the direction of Dr. Josef Mengele and housed in the same barracks. Some time passed, and she noted that she no longer saw any of these women. She made inquiries. “Where are the pregnant women who were housed in that barracks?” “Haven’t you heard?” came the reply. “Dr. Mengele used them for vivisection.”
Another woman told of how Mengele had bound up her breasts so that she could not suckle her infant. The doctor wanted to learn how long an infant could survive without nourishment. Desperately this poor woman tried to keep her baby alive by giving it pieces of bread soaked in coffee, but to no avail. Each day the baby lost weight, a fact that was eagerly monitored by Dr. Mengele. A nurse then came secretly to this woman and told her, “I have arranged a way for you to get out of here, but you cannot take your baby with you. I have brought a morphine injection that you can give to your child to end its life.” When the woman protested, the nurse was insistent: “Look, your baby is going to die anyway. At least save yourself.” And so this mother felt compelled to take the life of her own baby. Dr. Mengele was furious when he learned of it because he had lost his experimental specimen, and he searched among the dead to find the baby’s discarded corpse so that he could have one last weighing.
My heart was torn by these stories. One rabbi who survived the camp summed it up well when he said that at Auschwitz it was as though there existed a world in which all the Ten Commandments were reversed. Mankind had never seen such a hell.
And yet, if God does not exist, then in a sense, our world is Auschwitz: There is no right and wrong; all things are permitted.
But no atheist, no agnostic, can live consistently with such a view. Nietzsche himself, who proclaimed the necessity of living beyond good and evil, broke with his mentor Richard Wagner precisely over the issue of the composer’s anti-Semitism and strident German nationalism. Similarly, Sartre, writing in the aftermath of the Second World War, condemned anti-Semitism, declaring that a doctrine that leads to mass extermination is not merely an opinion or matter of personal taste of equal value with its opposite. In his important essay “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” Sartre struggles vainly to elude the contradiction between his denial of divinely pre-established values and his urgent desire to affirm the value of human persons. Like Russell, he could not live with the implications of his own denial of ethical absolutes.
Neither can the so-called New Atheists like Richard Dawkins. For although he says that there is no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference, he is an unabashed moralist. He vigorously condemns such actions as the harassment and abuse of homosexuals, religious indoctrination of children, the Incan practice of human sacrifice, and prizing cultural diversity over the interests of Amish children. He even goes so far as to offer his own amended Ten Commandments for guiding moral behavior, all the while marvelously oblivious to the contradiction with his ethical subjectivism.
Indeed, one will probably never find an atheist who lives consistently with his system. For a universe without moral accountability and devoid of value is unimaginably terrible.
Finally, let’s look at the problem of purpose in life. The only way most people who deny purpose in life live happily is either by making up some purpose—which amounts to self-delusion, as we saw with Sartre—or by not carrying their view to its logical conclusions. The temptation to invest one’s own petty plans and projects with objective significance and thereby to find some purpose to one’s life is almost irresistible.
For example, the outspoken atheist and Nobel Prize–winning physicist Steven Weinberg, at the close of his much-acclaimed book The First Three Minutes, writes,
It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that somehow we were built in from the beginning.… It is very hard to realize that this all is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.
But if there is no solace in the fruits of our research, there is at least some consolation in the research itself. Men and women are not content to comfort themselves with tales of gods and giants, or to confine their thoughts to the daily affairs of life; they also build telescopes and satellites and accelerators, and sit at their desks for endless hours working out the meaning of the data they gather. The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
There’s something strange about Weinberg’s moving description of the human predicament: Tragedy is not a neutral term. It expresses an evaluation of a situation. Weinberg evidently sees a life devoted to scientific pursuits as truly meaningful, and therefore it’s tragic that such a noble pursuit should be extinguished. But why, given atheism, should the pursuit of science be any different from slouching about doing nothing? Since there is no objective purpose to human life, none of our pursuits has any objective significance, however important and dear they may seem to us subjectively. They’re no more significant than shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.
As I was driving to my office one day I heard a dramatic radio advertisement for a book. It began something like this: “Would you like to find meaning in life?” As I listened to the remainder of the ad I realized that the book’s author was focusing on New Age concepts of purpose and meaning. But the striking thing about what was said was that the advertisers obviously believed that they could get the attention of the radio audience by asking about meaning in life. Some may think it is advertising suicide to open an ad with such a question. Or perhaps the author and her publicists are on to something that “strikes a chord” with many people in our culture.
Questions of meaning and purpose are a part of the mental landscape as we enter a new millenium. Some contend this has not always been the case, but that such questions are an unprecedented legacy of the upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.{3} Others assert that such questions are a result of man’s rejection of God.{4}
Even though most of us don’t make such issues a part of our normal conversations, the questions tend to lurk around us. They can be heard in songs, movies, books, magazines, and many other media that permeate our lives. For example, Jackson Browne, an exceptionally reflective songwriter of the ’60s and ’70s, wrote these haunting lyrics in a song entitled For a Dancer:
Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go ahead and throw
Some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive….{5}
Russell Banks, the author of Affliction and The Sweet Hereafter, both of which became Oscar-nominated films, has this to say about his work: “I’m not a morbid man. In my writing, I’m just trying to describe the world as straightforwardly as I can. I think most lives are desperate and painful, despite surface appearances. If you consider anyone’s life for long, you find it’s without meaning.”{6}
Woody Allen, the film writer, director, and actor, has consistently populated his scripts with characters who exchange dialogue concerning meaning and purpose. In Hannah and Her Sisters a character named Mickey says, “Do you realize what a thread we’re all hanging by? Can you understand how meaningless everything is? Everything. I gotta get some answers.”{7}
Even television ads have focused on meaning, although in a flippant manner. A few years ago you could watch Michael Jordan running across hills and valleys in order to find a guru. When Jordan finds him he asks, “What is the meaning of life?” The guru answers with a maxim that leads to the product that is the real focus of Jordan’s quest.
Even though such illustrations can be ridiculous, maybe they serve to lead us beyond the surface of our subject. We often get nervous when we are encouraged to delve into subject matter that might stretch us. When we get involved in conversations that go beyond the more mundane things of everyday life we may tend to get tense and defensive. Actually, this can be a good thing. The Christian shouldn’t fear such conversations. Indeed, I’m confident that if we go beyond the surface, we can find peace and hope.
Beyond the Surface
Listen to the sober words of a famous writer of the twentieth century:
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy…. I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.{8}
These phrases indicate that Albert Camus, author of The Plague, The Stranger, and The Myth of Sisyphus, was not afraid to go beyond the surface. Camus was bold in exposing the thoughts many were having during his lifetime. In fact, his world view made it obligatory. He was struggling with questions of meaning in light of what some called the “death of God.” That is, if there is no God, can we find meaning? Many have concluded that the answer is a resounding “No!” If true, this means that one who believes there is no God is not living consistently with that belief.
William Lane Craig, one of the great Christian thinkers of our time, states that:
Man cannot live consistently and happily as though life were ultimately without meaning, value or purpose. If we try to live consistently within the atheistic world view, we shall find ourselves profoundly unhappy. If instead we manage to live happily, it is only by giving the lie to our world view.{9}
Francis Schaeffer agrees with Craig’s analysis, but makes even bolder assertions. He also maintains that the Christian can close the hopeless gap that is created in a person’s godless world view. Listen to what he wrote:
It is impossible for any non-Christian individual or group to be consistent to their system in logic or in practice. Thus, when you face twentieth-century man, whether he is brilliant or an ordinary man of the street, a man of the university or the docks, you are facing a man in tension; and it is this tension which works on your behalf as you speak to him.{10}
What happens when we go “beyond the surface” in order to find meaning? Can a Christian world view stand up to the challenge? I believe it can, but we must stop and think of whether we are willing to accept the challenge. David Henderson, a pastor and writer, gives us reason to pause and consider our response. He writes:
Our lives, like our Daytimers, are busy, busy, busy, full of things to do and places to go and people to see. Many of us, convinced that the opposite of an empty life is a full schedule, remain content to press on and ignore the deeper questions. Perhaps it is out of fear that we stuff our lives to the walls—fear that, were we to stop and ask the big questions, we would discover there are no satisfying answers after all.{11}
Let’s jettison any fear and continue our investigation. There are satisfying answers. It is not necessary to “stuff our lives to the walls” in order to escape questions of meaning and purpose. God has spoken to us. Let us begin to pursue His answers.
Eternity in Our Hearts
The book of Ecclesiastes contains numerous phrases that have entered our discourse. One of those phrases states that God “has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart. . .” (3:11). What a fascinating statement! Actually, the first part of the verse can be just as accurately translated “beautiful in its time.” Thus “a harmony of purpose and a beneficial supremacy of control pervade all issues of life to such an extent that they rightly challenge our admiration.”{12} The second part of the verse indicates that “man has a deep-seated ‘sense of eternity’, of purposes and destinies.”{13}But man can’t fathom the vastness of eternal things, even when he believes in the God of eternity. As a result, all people live with what some call a “God-shaped hole.” Stephen Evans believes this hole can be understood through “the desire for eternal life, the desire for eternal meaning, and the desire for eternal love:”{14}
The desire for eternal life is the most evident manifestation of the need for God. Deep in our hearts we feel death should not be, was not meant to be.
The second dimension of our craving for eternity is the desire for eternal meaning. We want lives that are eternally meaningful.
We crave eternity, and earthly loves resemble eternity enough to kindle our deepest love. Yet earthly loves are not eternal. Our sense that love is the clue to what it’s all about is right on target, but earthly love itself merely points us in the right direction.
What we want is an eternal love, a love that loves us unconditionally, accepts us as we are, while helping us to become all we can become.
In short, we want God, the God of Christian faith.{15}
We must trust God for what we cannot see and understand. Or, to put it another way, we continue to live knowing there is meaning, but we struggle to know exactly what it is at all times. We are striving for what the Bible refers to as our future glorification (Rom. 8:30). “There is something self-defeating about human desire, in that what is desired, when achieved, seems to leave the desire unsatisfied.”{16} For example, we attempt to find meaning while searching for what is beautiful. C.S. Lewis referred to this in a sermon entitled The Weight of Glory:
The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things–the beauty, the memory of our own past–are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have not visited.{17}
Lewis’ remarkable prose reminds us that meaning must be given to us. “Meaning is never intrinsic; it is always derivative. If my life itself is to have meaning (or a meaning), it thus must derive its meaning from some sort of purposive, intentional activity. It must be endowed with meaning.”{18} Thus we return to God, the giver of meaning.
Meaning: God’s Gift
Think of all the wonderful gifts that God has given you. No doubt you can come up with a lengthy record of God’s goodness. Does your list include meaning or purpose in life? Most people wouldn’t think of meaning as part of God’s goodness to us. But perhaps we should. This is because “only a being like God–a creator of all who could eventually, in the words of the New Testament, ‘work all things together for good’–only this sort of being could guarantee a completeness and permanency of meaning for human lives.”{19}So how did God accomplish this? The answer rests in His amazing love for us through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Consider the profound words of Carl F.H. Henry: “the eternal and self-revealed Logos, incarnate in Jesus Christ, is the foundation of all meaning.”{20} Bruce Lockerbie puts it like this: “The divine nature manifesting itself in the physical form of Jesus of Nazareth is, in fact, the integrating principle to which all life adheres, the focal point from which all being takes its meaning, the source of all coherence in the universe. Around him and him alone all else may be said to radiate. He is the Cosmic Center.”{21}
Picture a bicycle. When you ride one you are putting your weight on a multitude of spokes that radiate from a hub. All the spokes meet at the center and rotate around it. The bicycle moves based upon the center. Thus it is with Christ. He is the center around whom we move and find meaning. Our focus is on Him.
When the apostle Paul reflected on meaning and purpose in his life in Phillipians 3, he came to this conclusion (emphases added):
7…whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ,
9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
10 that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;
11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Did you notice how Christ was central to what Paul had to say about both his past and present? And did you notice that he used phrases such as “knowing Christ,” or “that I may gain Christ?” Such statements appear to be crucial to Paul’s sense of meaning and purpose. Paul wants “to know” Christ intimately, which means he wants to know by experience. “Paul wants to come to know the Lord Jesus in that fulness of experimental knowledge which is only wrought by being like Him.”{22}
Martin Karplus is a chemist, Professor emeritus at Harvard University, and Nobel laureate who has spent the past fifty years consumed by a passion for documenting humanity in thousands of photographs. Sourced from Europe, Asia, and the Americas, his photographs capture societies at pivotal moments in their cultural and economic development in rich Kodachrome color.
In 1953, the Austrian-born, American Karplus received his uncle’s Leica camera as a gift from his parents and headed to Oxford University on a fellowship. In the following years he would spend months exploring the globe, documenting what he describes a “vision of a world, much of which no longer exists”.
Images from the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, Italy, France, Yugoslavia, and Germany present the closure of a bygone lifestyle as societies modernized and rebuilt in the wake of World War 2 and the dawning of the Cold War. Further travels throughout the 1950s took him to the Americas, where he photographed the exuberance of suburban Californian prosperity alongside Native and Latin Americans living a way of life uninterrupted for centuries, yet largely unheard of today. A more recent series from 2008-09 presents a look at China and India as each nation’s unfurling economy brings rapid modernization, as well as to Japan, where it has firmly taken root.
Exhibition Coordinator Natascha Boojar Exhibition Assistants Lisa-Joanna Csanyi, Sophie Gogl
With generous support from The Office of Science and Technology Austria (OSTA)
Supporting Institutions of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York Air Berlin, Esterházy Winery, Stiegl
Special thanks to Franklin Castanien, Taylor Hawkins, Stefan Hoza, Geraldine Lau
Jewish Trio Win Nobel Prize for Chemistry: Michael Levitt, Martin Karplus and Arieh Warshel awarded
Published on Oct 11, 2013
A three man team of professors has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. And all three are Jewish, with two hailing from Israel. Michael Levitt, a British-US citizen of Stanford University; US-Austrian Martin Karplus of Strasbourg University and Harvard; and US-Israeli Arieh Warshel of the University of Southern California will share this year’s prize of around USD 1.25 million. Warshel said the work for which he and his colleagues received the prize is for developing a method that allowed them to understand how proteins work. The trio devised computer simulations to understand chemical processes. In so doing, they revolutionized research in areas ranging from pharmaceuticals to solar energy.
Arieh Warshel, Michael Levitt, and Martin Karplus win prize for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems; all three scientists are Jewish, while Warshel and Levitt hold Israeli citizenship.
Three Jewish scientists – two of them Israelis who had emigrated to the U.S. – won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday.
Arieh Warshel, Michael Levitt and Martin Karplus were awarded the top international prize for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Wednesday said, upon awarding the prize of 8 million crowns ($1.25 million), that their research in the 1970s has helped scientists develop programs that unveil chemical processes such as the purification of exhaust fumes or the photosynthesis in green leaves.
“The work of Karplus, Levitt and Warshel is ground-breaking in that they managed to make Newton’s classical physics work side-by-side with the fundamentally different quantum physics,” the academy said. “Previously, chemists had to choose to use either/or.”
All three winners are American citizens, but also hold dual citizenships. Warshel and Levitt are Israeli citizens, and both studied and worked at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, where Levitt also served as head of the Chemical Physics Department. Warshel was also educated at the Technion. Austrian-born Karplus had fled the Nazis to the U.S. as a child.The Nobel prize was awarded to them on the basis of their research at American universities.
Warshel is a U.S. and Israeli citizen affiliated with the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Levitt is a U.S., Israeli and British citizen and a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and Karplus is affiliated with the University of Strasbourg, France, and Harvard University.
Pretoria-born Levitt immigrated to Israel at the age of 35 in 1983. He married an Israeli, and worked a few years at the Weizmann Institute until he left for Stanford.
“I can’t say I moved there because the conditions in Israel were not satisfactory,” Levitt told Israel Army Radio. “In all honesty, to this day I can’t quite say why I left the country, my connection to it being very strong. […] My wife is Israeli, I have two sons living in Israel.”
When visiting Israel, Levitt resides in a Rehovot flat, but recently has been considering a move to Tel Aviv, which he called “an amazing city.”
“I am being asked all the time what I plan to do with the winnings, but it isn’t enough to buy a flat in Tel Aviv with.” ‘I didn’t leave by choice’
Warshel completed his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in 1966.
The person who supervised Warshel in his final project, ‘his first scientific father,’ you could say, was Prof. Ruben Pauncz, who was the first in Israel who dealt with quantum chemistry and calculations of the molecular and atomic systems. Through him, Warshel entered the field of theoretical chemistry.
“I was very happy to hear of Arieh Warshel’s winning [the Nobel Prize]”, Pauncz, now 93 years old, told Haaretz. “There were very many students over the years and I remember him somewhat hazily. I remember at some point speaking with Prof. Shneior Lifson of the Weizmann Institute, who supervised his doctorate work, and I remember he was impressed by his intellectual abilities.”
From the Technion, Warshel continued on to the Weizmann Institute of Science, where, in 1970 he completed his Ph. D. degree after three years of work. He spent four years there as a researcher in the Molecular Biology Department, from 1972 to 1976, and then in the late 1970s left for the United States, after not being able to receive tenure at the Institute, according to Speiser.
“The primary reason I left [the Weitzmann Institute] was the difficulties I had in progressing [there],” said Warshel, interviewed Wednesday on Channel 2. “I didn’t leave by choice, so I am not a good example for the‘brain drain’ issue,” he added.
As to his relationship with Israel, Warshel said “I still define myself as an Israeli, but it isn’t a clear definition. I have two passports. I speak Hebrew, and sometimes pass to English.” But, he concluded his answer, “I act like an Israeli.”
“I was sleeping when I got the news,” he said. “My wife got a call, and after verifying a Swedish accent was on the other end I was very pleased.”
Warshel’s wife Tamar told Israel Radio on Wednesday that her husband “didn’t know how to sell himself well enough to Israeli academia,” when asked about his leaving Israel.
Benny Shalev, Warshel’s brother, spoke to him after the announcement. “He was very excited – like someone who won the Nobel Prize. He may not have been completely surprised since he has been a candidate to receive the prize for a few years already, but it is still a very nice surprise,” Shalev told Haaretz.
Warshel visits Israel once a year and was last here three months ago, said his brother. “He came to lecture at Tel Aviv University and Weizmann Institute.” As to the reasons Warshel left Weizmann, Shalev said: “There are a lot of smart people in Israel and at the same time there was not a job – so he left.”
Warshel won the prize for his development of computer programs that describe the processes of complex chemical and biological systems using quantum mechanical and classical models, explained Prof. Alon Hoffman, the dean of the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion.
“Today, in biological systems we are trying to understand how proteins work and how drugs work, for example, on proteins. With the aid of these [computer] programs we can predict the nature of the interaction between the protein and the drug, the responses of the active ingredients, etc. To predict the processes using computerized methods has great importance and it allows the development of new materials and drugs,” said Hoffman.
“In short, what we developed is a method which requires computers to look, to take the structure of the protein and then to eventually understand how exactly it does what it does,” Warshel said. When scientists wanted to simulate complex chemical processes on computers, they used to have to choose between software that was based on quantum physics, which applies on the scale of an atom, or classical Newtonian physics, which operates at larger scales. The academy said the three laureates developed computer models that “opened a gate between these two worlds.”
While quantum mechanics is more accurate, it is impossible to use on large molecules because the equations are too complex to solve. By using quantum mechanics only for key parts of molecules and classical physics for the rest, the blended approach delivers the accuracy of the quantum approach with manageable computations.
“They certainly deserve the prize. They are trailblazers and to a great extent they founded this field,” said Prof. Hanoch Senderowitz of the chemistry department at Bar-Ilan University, who also works in the area of computerized models of chemical and biological systems.
“The specific field which they specialize in is molecular dynamics and in their first simulation they ran on biological systems. To receive a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in a theoretical field is exceptional,” said Senderowitz.
“The great majority of Nobel Prize winners are experimentalists. I think that this is mostly because people have finally understood the importance of this field and the things it can bring. For people in this field, international recognition is important, because we are talking about a computing tool that always went hand in hand with the experimental work. When you develop a computer model you always validate it against experimental results, since only after you validate it a great number of times can you achieve results,” explained Senderowitz.
Chemistry was the third of this year’s Nobel prizes, medicine and physics were already awarded. The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of businessman and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel.
Israel’s history of Nobel Prizes
Israel has an impressive showing when it comes to Nobel winners, with 11 laureates in its 65-year history. Most recently, Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2011, just two years afterAda Yonath won the same award in 2009. Other Israelis to have won the prestigious prize in Chemistry were Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko in 2004. Three Israeli politicians have also won the Nobel Prize for peace – Menachem Begin in 1978, and Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin in 1994.
The other Israeli Nobel laureates are Robert Aumann and Daniel Kahneman, who won the prize in economic sciences in 2005 and 2002 respectively, and Shmuel Yosef Agnon, who won the prize in literature in 1966.
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 […]
I have written about this before and I have made it clear also that we don’t need to be paying for our wealthy allies’ defense when we are going broke. We need Congress to look at cutting anywhere in the budget where they find waste.
National defense is one of the few legitimate functions of the federal government, but that doesn’t mean the military should get a blank check to spend unlimited amounts of money.
To make sure taxpayers get the best bang for the buck (no pun intended), there should be a sober assessment of threats to national security and a plan to defend against those threats without adding superfluous expenditures.
That being said, America already accounts for close to 50 percent of world military spending, with another 25 percent of the global total coming from nations that are allied to the United States, so I’m fairly confident that we’re not under-spending on the Pentagon.
But I would like the Defense Department to have some flexibility to reallocate funds so that we spend money on national security rather than boondoggles.
And there are some absurd examples of waste at the Pentagon, including “green” jet fuel that costs 15 times as much as regular fuel. Here are some of the mind-boggling details from the Washington Examiner.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recently warned that sequestration would cause “suspension of important activities, curtailed training, and could result in furloughs of civilian personnel” but the spending cuts haven’t killed the green fuels program, as the Pentagon has continued purchasing renewable fuel at $59 per gallon. “In March, Gevo entered into a contract with the Defense Logistics Agency to supply the U.S. Army with 3,650 gallons of renewable jet fuel to be delivered by the second quarter of 2013,” Gevo announced this week in its first quarter financial report. “This initial order may be increased by 12,500 gallons.
This is even worse than the bizarre $600,000 frog statue than the Defense Department selected to adorn a new $700 million office building.
I realize that the $700 million office building should be the bigger issue, but I can’t help but be irked by the thought that taxpayers are being raped and pillaged for the frog.
In any event, the $700 million for the office building is pocket change compared to the amount of money we misallocate to subsidize Western Europe to protect against a Warsaw Pact military alliance that no longer exists!
But wasting money in those areas is not a reason to also have waste at the Pentagon.
_____________
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
I have said for years that the USA should not pay for the defense Germany and Japan. Yes, there were many reasons that was true in the past, but now they are two of our biggest friends and trading partners and they are on our side. Why should we limit their military now? I read […]
We got lots of problems at home with our country’s finances. Then why are we paying for Germany and Japan’s defense? Romney’s Other 47% Problem by Harvey Sapolsky and Benjamin H. Friedman Harvey Sapolsky is professor emeritus of public policy and organization at MIT. His co-author, Benjamin Friedman, is a research fellow at the Cato […]
I used to think that we must double the defense budget when we were in the cold war, but I did wonder why we were not letting Germany and Japan (who are two of our biggest trade partners) build up their defenses. I was given the old tired answer that we could not trust them […]
I used to think that we must double the defense budget when we were in the cold war, but I did wonder why we were not letting Germany and Japan (who are two of our biggest trade partners) build up their defenses. I was given the old tired answer that we could not trust them […]
Biography Part 2 In 1977, when I reached the age of 65, I retired from teaching at the University of Chicago. At the invitation of Glenn Campbell, Director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, I shifted my scholarly work to Hoover where I remain a Senior Research Fellow. We moved to San Francisco, purchasing […]
I have said over and over in the past that we have no business paying for other wealthy countries’ defense needs. April 23, 2013 4:43PM Subsidizing the Security of Wealthy Allies By Christopher A. Preble Share How much does the United States spend on the military relative to our allies? A lot. A new Cato […]
We need to slash defense spending and make other wealthy allies pay for their own defense!!!! The Republicans need to wake up on this issue. APRIL 15, 2013 1:13PM Your Tax Dollars at Work: Subsidizing the Security of Wealthy Allies By CHRISTOPHER A. PREBLE SHARE It’s Tax Day, and for millions of Americans that means ponying […]
Senator Pryor is a classy guy that I do respect a great deal. He has a firm faith that will continue to lead him through his life in whatever path he takes. He demonstrated that class last night in his concession speech.
Mark Pryor delivers speech after Rep. candidate Tom Cotton takes U.S. Senate seat
__________ Real Time with Bill Maher: Ben Affleck, Sam Harris and Bill Maher Debate Radical Islam (HBO) Sam Harris rightly noted earlier this month on Bill Maher’s show that liberals are still getting “agitated over the abortion clinic bombings that happened in 1984″ but they are not upset at what is happening in the Muslim […]
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 […]
Open letter to President Obama (Part 673) (Emailed to White House on 6-12-13.) 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 […]
Open letter to President Obama (Part 663) (Emailed to White House on 6-5-13.) 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 […]
Open letter to President Obama (Part 661) (Emailed to White House on 6-5-13.) 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 […]
Pro-life Atheist Nat Hentoff: Mr. President, did you mean what you said at Notre Dame about “working together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions”? 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 […]
Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION _____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR 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 […]
Pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff: With Obama you will get more abortions!!! 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 […]
Open letter to President Obama (Part 641) (Emailed to White House on 6-12-13.) 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 […]
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 […]
PUBLISHED: 01:23 EST, 22 July 2014 | UPDATED: 12:30 EST, 22 July 2014
His new movie Magic In The Moonlight has already received rather lukewarm reviews from the critics, but Colin Firth didn’t look too perturbed as he stepped out at a screening for the film in Los Angeles on Monday hosted by Sabra where Purity Vodka Cocktails were served.
The 53-year-old British actor looked dapper in a navy blue suit, tie and white shirt at the Pickford Centre for Motion Picture Study.
The actor was without his glamorous leading lady Emma Stone at the event, but mingled with co-stars Jacki Weaver and Hamish Linklater
Scroll down for video
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So dapper: Colin Firth looked handsome in a dark blue suit and wide tie as he stepped out on the red carpet at a special Los Angeles screening of Magic In The Moonlight on Monday night
The comedy film, both written and directed by Allen, is set on The French Riviera in the 1920s and co-stars Firth as Stanley – a British stage magician recruited to unmask Sophie (Stone) a possible fraudulent spiritualist who is possibly conning a rich dowager (Weaver).
Events conspire to prompt Stanley to question his scepticism and the audience begin to wonder if there is anything in Sophie’s spiritualist claims.
The film is director Woody Allen’s first writer/directorial effort since last year’s acclaimed Blue Jasmine, which won Cate Blanchett a Best Actress Oscar.
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Suited and booted: Colin stars alongside Emma Stone in the comedy film but the actress was absent at Monday’s event
Suited and booted: Jacki Weaver and husband actor Sean Taylor sported a shiny black jacket and trousers with open toed high heels
‘A lot of that lay under the surface for me. I didn’t catch it all on first read,’ Firth recently told the Wall Street Journal about the film. ‘It basically has the aspect of something that’s incredibly light, a diversion.
‘And I think we all found in the twists and turns that there was an awful lot more. Before we knew it, people on the set were discussing their own beliefs, questions about what faith means to people.’
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Stars of the show: Firth joined Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures and actors Colin Simon McBurney, Jacki Weaver and Hamisih Linklater at the screening
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Promotional duties: Erica Leerhsen and Hamish Linklater both appear in the film
However, the movie has so far received mixed reviews from critics, with the Hollywood Reporter calling Firth’s performance ‘uncomfortable’ and insisting that ‘a minute [the movie] is over, you don’t care.’
Variety is more effusive, saying: ‘While the result may not quite equal Midnight in Paris’s box office bonanza, expect Magic to handily corner the upscale adult demo for the remainder of summer, continuing the Woodman’s late-career hot streak.’
‘His screenplay feels oddly toothless, as if the filmmaker hopes to relish in the humour of his scenario but failed to come up with enough punchlines to carry it out,’ Indiewire declares.
‘While it’s breezy and funny and perfectly pleasant, you probably won’t remember this particular gift by the time the next birthday rolls around,’ adds Entertainment Weekly.
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Stars on show: Colin Firth plays a magician and Emma Stone a psychic in the new Woody Allen movie Magic In The Moonlight
MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT – Official Trailer (2014) [HD] Emma Stone, Colin Firth
Published on May 21, 2014
Release Date: July 25, 2014 (limited)
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Director: Woody Allen
Screenwriter: Woody Allen
Starring: Emma Stone, Colin Firth, Marcia Gay Harden, Hamish Linklater, Simon McBurney, Eileen Atkins, Jacki Weaver, Erica Leerhsen, Catherine McCormack, Paul Ritter, Jeremy Shamos
Genre: Comedy, Drama
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for a brief suggestive comment, and smoking throughout)
Plot Summary:
“Magic in the Moonlight” is a romantic comedy about an Englishman brought in to help unmask a possible swindle. Personal and professional complications ensue. The film is set in the south of France in the 1920s against a backdrop of wealthy mansions, the Cфte d’Azur, jazz joints and fashionable spots for the wealthy of the Jazz Age.
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 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 […]
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______________ I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such […]
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 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 […]
____________________________ 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 […]
________________________ 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 _________________- _____________________________ Discussing Woody Allen’s movie “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and various other subjects […]
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________________________ 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 […]
Woody Allen Show 3 Woody Allen Show 4 Woody Allen Interview- “Take The Money And Run” (Merv Griffin Show 1969) Woody Allen interviews Billy Graham pt.1 – Featured Video – Woody Allen entrevista a Billy Graham 2
_________________________ (If you want to check out other posts I have done about about Steve Jobs:Some say Steve Jobs was an atheist , Steve Jobs and Adoption , What is the eternal impact of Steve Jobs’ life? ,Steve Jobs versus President Obama: Who created more jobs? ,Steve Jobs’ view of death and what the Bible has to say about it ,8 things you might not know about […]
I have written about Woody Allen and the meaning of life several times before. King Solomon took a long look at this issue in the Book of Ecclesiastes and so did Kerry Livgren in his song “Dust in the Wind” for the rock band Kansas in 1978. He later put his faith in Christ. Love […]
I have written about Woody Allen and the meaning of life several times before. King Solomon took a long look at this issue in the Book of Ecclesiastes and so did Kerry Livgren in his song “Dust in the Wind” for the rock band Kansas in 1978. He later put his faith in Christ. […]
__________ Review of Woody Allen’s latest movie MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT (Part 1) Emma Stone stars in the new Woody Allen movie ‘Magic in the Moonlight’ – here’s the trailer Emma Stone and Colin Firth star in ‘Magic in the Moonlight,’ which is directed by Woody Allen. Emma Stone recently starred in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man […]
I have written about Woody Allen and the meaning of life several times before. King Solomon took a long look at this issue in the Book of Ecclesiastes and so did Kerry Livgren in his song “Dust in the Wind” for the rock band Kansas in 1978. He later put his faith in Christ. […]
A Documentary on Woody Allen and the meaning of life I have written about Woody Allen and the meaning of life several times before. King Solomon took a long look at this issue in the Book of Ecclesiastes and so did Kerry Livgren in his song “Dust in the Wind” for the rock band Kansas […]
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 his own secular view. […]
Food stamps were a popular topic of conversation last month as Congress debated the farm bill. This decades-old Great Society program is in much need of reform for at least seven reasons:
Food stamp spending has surged.Costs have been climbing since the program began in the 1960s, recession or not. Over roughly the past decade, food stamp spending jumped from $19.8 billion in 2000 to $84.6 billion in 2011.
Food stamp rolls have also been climbing for decades, regardless of the economic situation. Today, food stamp use is at an all-time high, with the most recent data showing that about one in seven people participate in the program. This is a 140 percent increase since 1990.
Government has vastly expanded food stamp eligibility. “Broad-based categorical eligibility,” put in place under the Clinton Administration and heavily pushed by the Obama Administration, loosens income and asset limits. That the number of households receiving food stamps has increased faster than households near the poverty line indicates that changes in food stamp policy helped boost the rolls.
States are spending taxpayer money to “recruit” food stamp participants who might not otherwise choose to use them. From advertisements, aggressive tactics, and enrollment quotas used by recruitment agents, it seems like Uncle Sam wants you on food stamps.
Despite what the left claims, food stamps don’t stimulate the economy. Every dollar spent on food stamps is a dollar that would otherwise be spent elsewhere. Therefore, it simply shuffles resources rather than adding economic growth.
Even in good economic times, many food stamp recipients don’t work. In 2010, among the roughly 10.5 million households receiving food stamps that contained an able-bodied, non-elderly adult, 5.5 million did not perform any work. Of those who did work, 1.5 million to 2 million worked less than 30 hours per week.
Food stamps discourage work and self-sufficiency. “The more income that a person receives when not working, the less is the reward to working,” University of Chicago Professor Casey Mulligan testified before Congress earlier this year. “In such cases, a person might have more resources available to use or save as a consequence of working less.” Because food stamp benefits are reduced by 30 cents for each dollar of net income a recipient earns, the program behaves like an income tax paid by recipients via reduced benefits. Thus, food stamps can often act as a disincentive to work. Mulligan estimates that this disincentive has actually prolonged the weak labor market recovery.
Policymakers should reform food stamps to promote self-sufficiency through work and roll back food stamp spending when employment rates improve. These changes would promote not only fiscal responsibility but, more importantly, personal responsibility and human dignity.
___________________________
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
If the increase in food stamps was just because of the recession then why did the spending go from $19.8 billion in 2000 to $37.9 billion in 2007? The Facts about Food Stamps Everyone Should Hear Rachel Sheffield and T. Elliot Gaiser May 27, 2013 at 12:00 pm (7) Newscom A recent US News & […]
Welfare Can And Must Be Reformed Uploaded on Jun 29, 2010 If America does not get welfare reform under control, it will bankrupt America. But the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector has a five-step plan to reform welfare while protecting our most vulnerable. __________________________ We got to slow down the growth of Food Stamps. One […]
Eight Reasons Why Big Government Hurts Economic Growth __________________ We got to cut spending and we must first start with food stamp program and we need some Senators that are willing to make the tough cuts. Food Stamp Republicans Posted by Chris Edwards Newt Gingrich had fun calling President Obama the “food stamp president,” but […]
Milton Friedman’s negative income tax explained by Friedman in 1968: We need to cut back on the Food Stamp program and not try to increase it. What really upsets me is that when the government gets involved in welfare there is a welfare trap created for those who become dependent on the program. Once they […]
Welfare Can And Must Be Reformed Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Jun 29, 2010 If America does not get welfare reform under control, it will bankrupt America. But the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector has a five-step plan to reform welfare while protecting our most vulnerable. __________________________ If welfare increases as much as it has in the […]
Why can’t we cut the Food Stamp budget? Should Food Stamps Be in Farm Bill? Congressman Seeks to Split Legislation Kelsey Harris June 17, 2013 at 10:38 pm Bill Clark/Roll Call Photos/Newscom Representative Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), a fourth-generation farmer, is asking his House colleagues to separate the food stamp program from the “farm” bill. Stutzman […]
The sad fact is that Food stamp spending has doubled under the Obama Administration. A Bumper Crop of Food Stamps Amy Payne May 21, 2013 at 7:01 am Tweet this Where do food stamps come from? They come from taxpayers—certainly not from family farms. Yet the “farm” bill, a recurring subsidy-fest in Congress, is actually […]
I am glad that my state of Arkansas is not the leader in food stamps!!! Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which State Has the Highest Food Stamp Usage of All? March 19, 2013 by Dan Mitchell The food stamp program seems to be a breeding ground of waste, fraud, and abuse. Some of the horror stories […]
Government Must Cut Spending Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Dec 2, 2010 The government can cut roughly $343 billion from the federal budget and they can do so immediately. __________ We are becoming a country filled with people that dependent on the federal government when we should be growing our economy by lowering taxes and putting […]
Uploaded by oversightandreform on Mar 6, 2012 Learn More at http://oversight.house.gov The Oversight Committee is examining reports of food stamp merchants previously disqualified who continue to defraud the program. According to a Scripps Howard News Service report, food stamp fraud costs taxpayers hundreds of millions every year. Watch the Oversight hearing live tomorrow at 930 […]
By: Chuck Colson|Published: November 4, 2014 6:18 AM
his is John Stonestreet. Today is Election Day, so please, go vote. And to encourage you, I’d like for you to hear from our old friend Chuck Colson. Stay tuned to BreakPoint.
If you knew Chuck Colson, or even just heard him on the radio, you knew he was a man of great passion. Passion for the prisoner, for justice, and especially for the Gospel.
Not surprisingly, he was also passionate about politics. And by politics, I mean being involved in the life of the polis, the life of the community and the nation.
If you have any doubts as a Christian whether or not you should vote in today’s mid-term elections, please listen to what Chuck has to say. I don’t think you’ll hear a better explanation of why we as Christians, out of love for God and our neighbors, must stay involved in the political process. So here’s Chuck Colson on the importance of voting.
So, have you voted yet? If so, well done. If not, as soon as this broadcast is over—or as soon as you’re off work—I want you to go and fulfill your Christian duty to be a good citizen and go vote.
And while you’re at it, call a few of your Christian friends. Find out if they’ve voted yet. If not, tell them that you’re going and you’ll be glad to stop by and pick them up.
Now is not the time to buy into the lie that your vote doesn’t really matter. As a result of my Watergate felony conviction, I lost the right to vote for 28 years. When my right was restored, I was able to vote in the 2000 presidential election. That year, the national election—the presidency—was determined by just 500 votes in Florida. Mine was one of those votes. So your vote does matter.
And let me say this. The next time you hear someone tell you that Christians ought to take a vacation from politics, tell them to go fly a kite!
Listen, it’s our duty, as citizens of the Kingdom of God to be the best citizens of the society we live in. If your pastor no longer has energy or courage to motivate his flock to speak out on public issues, maybe you can lovingly “buck him up.” Remind him or her that God’s people are to love their neighbors, to desire the best for them, to pursue the common good. And we can’t do that on the political sidelines.
When a rabid secularist tells you to stop forcing your religion down his throat—simply correct him. You might say, “Excuse me, but who is suing the government to remove crosses from cemeteries? Who has filed lawsuits to remove ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance? Who’s trying to tell doctors and nurses and pharmacists that they have to participate in medical procedures that violate their religious conscience? Who’s banning Bibles from schools?
In other words, who is forcing their point of view on whom?
We Christians are simply trying to PRESERVE and PROTECT the rights and liberties that we Americans have enjoyed from the founding of our Republic. We are the ones who take seriously our nation’s founding creed: that “all men are created equal and endowed by their CREATOR with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, meaning virtue.”
Our founders recognized that true rights come not from government, but from God Himself. Government must not take those rights away. And to protect those rights, we must vote.
Yes, the elections are upon us. Don’t be intimidated. Do not retreat to the sidelines. Go out and vote for the candidate of your choice. Vote as your conscience informs you. And yes, allow your faith to inform your conscience.
But today of all days, thank God we still live in a free nation. So speak out. Exercise your right. Fulfill your duty. Go and vote.
Well, if you weren’t sure whether or not you were going to vote today, I hope Chuck helped you reach the right decision. So please, go vote today and vote your conscience.
Chuck Colson: 2 minute warning – The Big Lie The lie of communism and the lie of atheism ____________________ Colson on Schaeffer Uploaded by ColsonCenter on Jan 31, 2012 Under Francis Schaeffer’s tutelage, Evangelicals like Chuck Colson learned to see life through the lens of a Christian worldview. Join Chuck as he celebrates a life […]
Colson on Schaeffer Uploaded by ColsonCenter on Jan 31, 2012 Under Francis Schaeffer’s tutelage, Evangelicals like Chuck Colson learned to see life through the lens of a Christian worldview. Join Chuck as he celebrates a life well lived. __________________ Worldview Teaching of Francis Schaeffer Still, the one who may have influenced Protestant Evangelicalism more than […]
Uploaded by ColsonCenter on Oct 27, 2011 Brit Hume describes the life of Chuck Colson Paul Greenberg is one of the finest conservative writers I have ever read and this article below may be his best yet. Paul Greenberg: Redemption for Charles Colson Posted: Thursday, May 3, 2012 4:30 am Charles Colson died the other […]
Chuck Colson friend gave 5 million dollars to Harvard for a center on ethics and Colson told his friend that he wasted his money. Watch this video for the explanation why. Uploaded by ColsonCenter on Mar 30, 2011 Presentation#1 of the “Doing The Right Thing” ethics tour: Dallas, TX, March 26, 2011. –THIS CLIP BEGINS […]
I got to hear Chuck Colson speak in person many years ago at Bellevue Baptist in Memphis where his good friend Adrian Rogers was the pastor. Here are videos from a 40 minute talk he gave in 2008 at Columbia University. Chuck Colson Gives His Testimony (1 of 4) Uploaded by bibleapologetics on Jul 18, […]
Two-Minute Warning: Moral Laws, Real Consequences Uploaded by ColsonCenter on Jun 1, 2011 Most people can identify a number of the physical laws of the universe, but these same people would be stumped to identify the moral laws which also govern the universe. Colson is at his finest as he explains the reality of moral […]
Chuck Colson: 35 Years of Faith — CBN.com Uploaded by CBNonline on Apr 4, 2008 The Christian author and apologist shares his conversion to Christ following the Watergate scandal, his ministry with Prison Fellowship, and insights on the importance of a Christian worldview today. ____________________ Many times people get involved in government and they let […]
Civil Disobedience and Christians Uploaded by ColsonCenter on Jul 20, 2010 Chuck Colson talks about civil disobedience and cases where Christians may need to practice it. Drawing on the Manhattan Declaration, which refers to civil disobedience as a possibility (if government encroaches too much on religious freedom), Colson also brings in Dr. Timothy George, a […]
I got to hear Chuck Colson speak in person in 1976 at the church I grew up in (Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis). Our pastor Adrian Rogers was personal friends with Colson. Colson – a guardian of the faith Charlie Butts – OneNewsNow – 4/21/2012 4:15:00 PM Chuck Colson, known worldwide for founding Prison Fellowship […]
Liberals think that Komen has damaged their image with this whole mess and now conservatives are upset with Komen too. Very good article from Breakpoint.org Komen Caves An Object Lesson for All of Us By: Chuck Colson|Published: February 3, 2012 2:59 PM Topics: Abortion, Colson_Links, Ethics, Health & Science, Life Issues Komen for the […]
I’ve generally directed my hostility to the politicians, butthe latest IRS scandalis leading me to reassess my views.
This Lisa Benson cartoon captures the mentality of the tax collection bureaucracy.
The problem isn’t that the IRS wasted money at boondoggle conferences. Every government agency and department pisses away money in a frivolous fashion.
We should be far more worried about the IRS’s callous disregard of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
I’ve said many times thatfundamental tax reformis the answer, but that’s only part of the story.
So long as we have a big and bloated government, the politicians are going to want some sort of oppressive bureaucracy to extract several trillion dollars of our money every year.
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
RAISE TAXES: Report says Rick Crawford will break from GOP and back millionaires’ tax. The Arkansas Times reported that Congressman Rick Crawford has a plan that includes raising taxes for 5 years if there is an agreement to pass the Balanced Budget Amendment. However, if after 5 years the Balanced Budget Amendment does not get […]
The result of having lots of taxes is the mean IRS. The IRS: Even Worse Than You Think Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell Since it is tax-filing season and we all want to honor our wonderful tax system, let’sgo into the archives and show this video from last year about the onerous compliance costs of the internal […]
The result of having lots of taxes is the mean IRS. The IRS: Even Worse Than You Think Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell Since it is tax-filing season and we all want to honor our wonderful tax system, let’s go into the archives and show this video from last year about the onerous compliance costs […]
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!!!! A Lesson on the Laffer Curve for Barack Obama November 6, 2011 by Dan Mitchell One of my frustrating missions […]
Better Published on May 28, 2013 No description available. “Better” – TV:30 DALE CUSTER (Little Rock): These politicians in Washington they just dont get it. NIC HORTON (Searcy): Mark Pryor just really doesnt get it. JANET CROW (Conway): Pryor votes like a liberal. DR. EARL PEEPLES (Little Rock): He is a liberal. NIC HORTON (Searcy): He […]
We can fix the IRS problem by going to the flat tax and lowering the size of government. Why the IRS Persecuted the Tea Party and How to Fix the Problem May 27, 2013 by Dan Mitchell Did President Obama and his team of Chicago cronies deliberately target the Tea Party in hopes of thwarting free speech […]
We know the IRS commissioner wasn’t telling the truth in March 2012, when he testified: “There’s absolutely no targeting.”However, Lois Lerner knew different when she misled people with those words. Two important points made by Noonan in the Wall Street Journal in the article below: First, only conservative groups were targeted in this scandal by […]
Ohio Liberty Coalition versus the I.R.S. (Tom Zawistowski) Published on May 20, 2013 The Ohio Liberty Coalition was among tea party groups that received special scrutiny from the I.R.S. Tom Zawistowski says his story is not unique. He argues the kinds of questions the I.R.S. asked his group amounts to little more than “opposition research.” Video […]
We got to lower the size of government so we don’t have these abuses like this in the IRS. Cartoonists v. the IRS May 23, 2013 by Dan Mitchell Call me perverse, but I’m enjoying this IRS scandal. It’s good to see them suffer a tiny fraction of the agony they impose on the American people. I’ve already […]
Is the irs out of control? Here is the link from cato: MAY 22, 2013 8:47AM Can You Vague That Up for Me? By TREVOR BURRUS SHARE As the IRS scandal thickens, targeted groups are coming out to describe their ordeals in dealing with that most-reviled of government agencies. The Ohio Liberty Coalition was one of […]
I was born in 1933 in New York City to Frederick and Eva Weinberg. My early inclination toward science received encouragement from my father, and by the time I was 15 or 16 my interests had focused on theoretical physics.
The Daily Hatch 