Monthly Archives: February 2021

Netflix Series AFTER LIFE Characters Examined in Light of Book of Ecclesiastes Part 5 Ricky Gervais as Tony Johnson

Ricky Gervais has been a longtime member of the British Humanist Association and good friends with its most famous member Richard Dawkins, and Ricky’s humanist worldview comes out in his latest series AFTER LIFE which is currently playing on Netflix. Just like Dr. Dawkins, Ricky is a well educated gentleman who is an avid reader of history and science.

On February 10, 2021 on Twitter live Ricky Gervais noted:


When I have been sitting around during lockdown and I do self teach. If I think of something then I Google it and I learn about it and go on You Tube and do a half hour seminar and it can be anything but it usually is science. I realize now how much I love learning. I always did but now I feel good. If I learn something it is like an achievement. I think everyone is the same

Ricky Gervais plays Tony Johnson in AFTER LIFE.

—-

After Life on Netflix

In the past I have done over 100 blog posts on the Netflix series AFTER LIFE written by Ricky Gervais and staring Ricky as Tony Johnson. I respect both Ricky and his character Tony for being people who demand evidence and they refuse to accept anything with a blind faith. That is part of the reason I started writing letters to Ricky several years ago with historical evidence from archaeology and ancient cultures on the Bible’s claims. I personally think his latest series AFTER LIFE is his best by far and it does a great job of examining Ricky’s humanistworldview and the natural conclusions that come from this time plus chance view of the world.

Just like Solomon in The Book of Ecclesiastes, Ricky in AFTER LIFE is examining life under the sun, which is life between birth and death without God in the picture. 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. In fact, the phrase under the sun appears 29 times in Ecclesiastes. 

Francis Schaefer indicated Ecclesiastes is truly the book of modern man because modern humanist man’s philosophy has brought him to the nihilistic conclusion that all is vanity and meaninglessness. This appears to be the place that the atheist Tony Johnson has landed and many of the characters around Tony have come to pessimistic conclusions about life too, though they have searched for satisfaction and meaning in life by pursuing ladiesluxurieslearninglaborliquor, and laughter.

Image result for wisdom of solomon

Blaise Pascal was one of the most brilliant scientists of all time and a believer

Image result for solomon ecclesiastes vanity of vanity education

0_After-Life-Netflix.jpg

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I mentioned earlier that Ricky is an avid reader of modern books on science and you can tell it by some of the discussions in AFTER LIFE. In episode 2 of the second season of AFTER LIFE is the following discussion: 
Tony: We are chimps with brains the size of planets. No wonder we get drunk and try to kill each other. It is mental.

Matt: Always good to talk.

Tony: I was just explaining my new plan is to drink myself to death till I eventually implode in on my own evolution. 
Kath: Do you believe in all that? 
Tony: What? The proven fact that there is evolution? Yeah

In the series AFTERLIFE you can obviously see how well read Ricky Gervais is and like many atheists it is obvious that Richard Dawkins is one of his heroes.

I am not an atheist but I have read about a dozen of Dawkins books also. Dawkins’ favorite book in the Bible is Ecclesiastes because of the poetry found in the King James Version and not the spiritual lessons.

Solomon was searching  for meaning in life in what I call the 6 big L words in the Book of Ecclesiastes. He looked into LEARNING (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).

Here is his final conclusion concerning LEARNING:

ECCLESIASTES 1:12-18, 2:12-17 LEARNING

12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.13And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done UNDER THE SUN, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

15 What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.

16 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.

18For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and he who INCREASES KNOWLEDGE INCREASES SORROW.

12So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. 13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them.15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!1So I hated life, because what is done UNDER THE SUN was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.

 Ecclesiastes was written to those who wanted to examine life UNDER THE SUN without God in the picture and Solomon’s conclusion in the final chapter was found in Ecclesiastes 12 when he looked at life ABOVE THE SUN:

13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Related posts:

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part I “Old Testament Bible Prophecy” includes the film TRUTH AND HISTORY and article ” Jane Roe became pro-life”

April 12, 2013 – 5:45 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical ArchaeologyFrancis SchaefferProlife | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur on fulfilled prophecy from the Bible Part 2

August 8, 2013 – 1:28 am

I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian RogersCurrent Events | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur on fulfilled prophecy from the Bible Part 1

August 6, 2013 – 1:24 am

I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian RogersCurrent Events |Tagged Bible Prophecyjohn macarthur | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur: Fulfilled prophecy in the Bible? (Ezekiel 26-28 and the story of Tyre, video clips)

April 5, 2012 – 10:39 am

Prophecy–The Biblical Prophesy About Tyre.mp4 Uploaded by TruthIsLife7 on Dec 5, 2010 A short summary of the prophecy about Tyre and it’s precise fulfillment. Go to this link and watch the whole series for the amazing fulfillment from secular sources. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvt4mDZUefo________________ John MacArthur on the amazing fulfilled prophecy on Tyre and how it was fulfilled […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (1)

John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2)

August 1, 2013 – 12:10 am

John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 1)

July 30, 2013 – 1:32 am

John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 1) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)

Adrian Rogers: “Why I believe the Bible is true”

July 9, 2013 – 8:38 am

Adrian Rogers – How you can be certain the Bible is the word of God Great article by Adrian Rogers. What evidence is there that the Bible is in fact God’s Word? I want to give you five reasons to affirm the Bible is the Word of God. First, I believe the Bible is the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian RogersBiblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (0)

The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy by Jim Wallace

June 24, 2013 – 9:47 am

Is there any evidence the Bible is true? Articles By PleaseConvinceMe Apologetics Radio The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy Jim Wallace A Simple Litmus Test There are many ways to verify the reliability of scripture from both internal evidences of transmission and agreement, to external confirmation through archeology and science. But perhaps the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical ArchaeologyCurrent Events | Edit|Comments (0)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part M “Old Testament prophecy fulfilled?”Part 3(includes film DEATH BY SOMEONE’S CHOICE)

April 19, 2013 – 1:52 am

  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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferProlife | Edit|Comments (0)

Evidence for the Bible

March 27, 2013 – 9:43 pm

Here is some very convincing evidence that points to the view that the Bible is historically accurate. Archaeological and External Evidence for the Bible Archeology consistently confirms the Bible! Archaeology and the Old Testament Ebla tablets—discovered in 1970s in Northern Syria. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | E

——

Netflix Series AFTER LIFE Characters Examined in Light of Book of Ecclesiastes Part 4 Tony Way plays Lenny

Tony Way plays Lenny

Tony Way in After Life

Who is Lenny? Tony’s friend and photographer at the Gazette, whom Tony affectionately teases.

Where have I seen Tony Way before? Way has played roles in TV comedy classics like Extras (with Gervais) and Black Books, but has also tackled dramatic roles; playing Plague in the 2011 film verison of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Dontos Hollard in Game of Thrones.

After Life on Netflix

In the past I have done over 100 blog posts on the Netflix series AFTER LIFE written by Ricky Gervais and staring Ricky as Tony Johnson. I respect both Ricky and his character Tony for being people who demand evidence and they refuse to accept anything with a blind faith. That is part of the reason I started writing letters to Ricky several years ago with historical evidence from archaeology and ancient cultures on the Bible’s claims. I personally think his latest series AFTER LIFE is his best by far and it does a great job of examining Ricky’s humanistworldview and the natural conclusions that come from this time plus chance view of the world.

Just like Solomon in The Book of Ecclesiastes, Ricky in AFTER LIFE is examining life under the sun, which is life between birth and death without God in the picture. 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. In fact, the phrase under the sun appears 29 times in Ecclesiastes. 

Francis Schaefer indicated Ecclesiastes is truly the book of modern man because modern humanist man’s philosophy has brought him to the nihilistic conclusion that all is vanity and meaninglessness. This appears to be the place that the atheist Tony Johnson has landed and many of the characters around Tony have come to pessimistic conclusions about life too, though they have searched for satisfaction and meaning in life by pursuing ladiesluxurieslearninglaborliquor, and laughter.

In episode 2 of season 2 we learn that Lenny is a ladies man: 

Sandy: You seem happy having a family. 
Lenny: Yeah with one woman. 

Sandy: Were you a bit of a ladies man?

Lenny: Big time. Oh yeah. I was a late starter so I had a lot of catching up to do. I didn’t really start playing the field till my twenties. 

Sandy: Oh, Okay. 
Lenny: I was quite shy in my teens. Wasn’t always this cool I guess. 

Sandy: No?

Lenny: I used to be sort of odd looking. 
Tony: [Shoot] me!

Lenny: I don’t know but I remember the ugly duckling being quite inspirational. 
Tony: That is the one who is a weird little duckling and all the other ducks are taking a piss out of it and when it grows up it is not a duck at all, but a big 200 lb human slug that works in a local free newspaper?

Lenny: Yeah that is the one. 
Tony: Play the field $&@$ hell!

3,000 years King Solomon like Lenny thought the meaning of life was to be found in the pursuit of bedding the most ladies possible.

Ecclesiastes 2:8-10The Message (MSG)

I piled up silver and gold,
        loot from kings and kingdoms.
I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song,
    and—most exquisite of all pleasures—
    voluptuous maidens for my bed.

9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!

1 Kings 11:1-3 English Standard Version (ESV)

11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.

Francis Schaeffer noted:

An expert but also the reason for his bitterness. Certainly there have been many men over the centuries who have daydreamed of Solomon’s wealth in this area [of women], but at the end it was sorrow, not only sorrow, but nothing and less than nothing. The simple fact is that one can not know woman in the real sense by pursuing 1000 women. It is not possible. Woman is not found this way. All that is left in this setting if one were to pursue the meaning of life in this direction is this most bitter word found in Ecclesiastes 7:28, “I have looked for other answers but have found none. I found one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not one woman.” (Good News Translation on verse 28) He was searching in the wrong way. He was searching for the answer to life in the limited circle of that which is beautiful in itself but not an answer finally in sexual life. More than that he finally tried to find it in variety and he didn’t even touch one woman at the end.

King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2:11 sums up his search for meaning in the area of the Sexual Revolution with these words, “…behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

Francis Schaeffer observed concerning Solomon, “You can not know woman but knowing 1000 women.”

How about America’s most well known playboy the late Hugh Hefner? Schaeffer said that Hefner’s goal with the “playboy mentality is just to smash the puritanical ethnic.” About 30 years ago my pastor, Adrian Rogers of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee noticed an article where Hugh Hefner said he would be willing to trade all of his riches for the experience of just falling in love with one girl of his dreams and getting married. Rogers went on to say that the playboy lifestyle was bankrupt of lasting satisfaction and that God’s plan of marriage was best. In fact, the Book of Ecclesiastes shows that Solomon came to the conclusion that nothing in life gives true satisfaction without God including knowledge (1:16-18), ladies and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and great building projects (2:4-6, 18-20). You can only find a lasting meaning to your life by looking above the sun and bring God back into the picture. I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular humanist man can not hope to find a lasting meaning to his life in a closed system without bringing God back into the picture. This is the same exact case with Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Solomon’s experiment was a search for meaning to life “under the sun.” Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”

Did Solomon really write the Book of Ecclesiastes and for that matter did anything in the Bible actually happen in history? Take a look at some evidence from Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop below.

TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, under footnote #94)

So the story goes on. We have stopped at only a few incidents in the sweep back to the year 1000 B.C. What we hope has emerged from this is a sense of the historical reliability of the Bible’s text. When the Bible refers to historical incidents, it is speaking about the same sort of “history” that historians examine elsewhere in other cultures and periods. This borne out by the fact that some of the incidents, some of the individuals, and some of the places have been confirmed by archaeological discoveries in the past hundred years has swept away the possibility of a naive skepticism about the Bible’s history. And what is particularly striking is that the tide has built up concerning the time before the year 1000 B.C. Our knowledge about the years 2500 B.C. to 1000 B.C. has vastly increased through discoveries sometimes of whole libraries and even of hitherto unknown people and languages.

There was a time, for example, when the Hittite people, referred to in the early parts of the Bible, were treated as fictitious by critical scholars. Then came the discoveries after 1906 at Boghaz Koi (Boghaz-koy) which not only gave us the certainty of their existence but stacks of details from their own archives!

Archaeology and the Old Testament

Article contributed by Probe Ministries
Visit Probe’s website

Understanding Archaeology

Christianity is a historical faith based on actual events recorded in the Bible. Archaeology has therefore played a key role in biblical studies and Christian apologetics in several ways.

First, archaeology has confirmed the historical accuracy of the Bible. It has verified many ancient sites, civilizations, and biblical characters whose existence was questioned by the academic world and often dismissed as myths. Biblical archaeology has silenced many critics as new discoveries supported the facts of the Bible.

Second, archaeology helps us improve our understanding of the Bible. Although we do not have the original writings of the authors, thousands of ancient manuscripts affirm that we have an accurate transmission of the original texts.1 Archaeology can also help us to understand more accurately the nuances and uses of biblical words as they were used in their day.

Third, archaeology helps illustrate and explain Bible passages. The events of the Bible occurred at a certain time, in a particular culture, influenced by a particular social and political structure. Archaeology gives us insights into these areas. Archaeology also helps to supplement topics not covered in the Bible. Much of what we know of the pagan religions and the intertestamental period comes from archaeological research.

The Discovery of the Hittites

The Hittites played a prominent role in Old Testament history. They interacted with biblical figures as early as Abraham and as late as Solomon. They are mentioned in Genesis 15:20 as people who inhabited the land of Canaan. 1 Kings 10:29 records that they purchased chariots and horses from King Solomon. The most prominent Hittite is Uriah the husband of Bathsheba. The Hittites were a powerful force in the Middle East from 1750 B.C. until 1200 B.C. Prior to the late 19th century, nothing was known of the Hittites outside the Bible, and many critics alleged that they were an invention of the biblical authors.

In 1876 a dramatic discovery changed this perception. A British scholar named A. H. Sayce found inscriptions carved on rocks in Turkey. He suspected that they might be evidence of the Hittite nation. Ten years later, more clay tablets were found in Turkey at a place called Boghaz-koy. German cuneiform expert Hugo Winckler investigated the tablets and began his own expedition at the site in 1906.

Winckler’s excavations uncovered five temples, a fortified citadel and several massive sculptures. In one storeroom he found over ten thousand clay tablets. One of the documents proved to be a record of a treaty between Ramesses II and the Hittite king. Other tablets showed that Boghaz-koy was the capital of the Hittite kingdom. Its original name was Hattusha and the city covered an area of 300 acres. The Hittite nation had been discovered!

Less than a decade after Winckler’s find, Czech scholar Bedrich Hronzny proved the Hittite language is an early relative of the Indo-European languages of Greek, Latin, French, German, and English. The Hittite language now has a central place in the study of the history of the Indo-European languages.

The discovery also confirmed other biblical facts. Five temples were found containing many tablets with details of the rites and ceremonies that priests performed. These ceremonies described rites for purification from sin and purification of a new temple. The instructions proved to be very elaborate and lengthy. Critics once criticized the laws and instructions found in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy as too complicated for the time it was written (1400 B.C.). The Boghaz-koy texts along with others from Egyptian sites and a site along the Euphrates called Emar have proven that the ceremonies described in the Jewish Pentateuch are consistent with the ceremonies of the cultures of this time period.

The Hittite Empire made treaties with civilizations they conquered. Two dozen of these have been translated and provide a better understanding of treaties in the Old Testament. The discovery of the Hittite Empire at Boghaz-koy has significantly advanced our understanding of the patriarchal period. Dr. Fred Wright summarizes the importance of this find in regard to biblical historicity:

Now the Bible picture of this people fits in perfectly with what we know of the Hittite nation from the monuments. As an empire they never conquered the land of Canaan itself, although the Hittite local tribes did settle there at an early date. Nothing discovered by the excavators has in any way discredited the Biblical account. Scripture accuracy has once more been proved by the archaeologist.4

The discovery of the Hittites has proven to be one of the great archaeological finds of all time. It has helped to confirm the biblical narrative and had a great impact on Middle East archaeological study. Because of it, we have come to a greater understanding of the history of our language, as well as the religious, social, and political practices of the ancient Middle East.

Related posts:

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part I “Old Testament Bible Prophecy” includes the film TRUTH AND HISTORY and article ” Jane Roe became pro-life”

April 12, 2013 – 5:45 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical ArchaeologyFrancis SchaefferProlife | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur on fulfilled prophecy from the Bible Part 2

August 8, 2013 – 1:28 am

I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian RogersCurrent Events | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur on fulfilled prophecy from the Bible Part 1

August 6, 2013 – 1:24 am

I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian RogersCurrent Events |Tagged Bible Prophecyjohn macarthur | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur: Fulfilled prophecy in the Bible? (Ezekiel 26-28 and the story of Tyre, video clips)

April 5, 2012 – 10:39 am

Prophecy–The Biblical Prophesy About Tyre.mp4 Uploaded by TruthIsLife7 on Dec 5, 2010 A short summary of the prophecy about Tyre and it’s precise fulfillment. Go to this link and watch the whole series for the amazing fulfillment from secular sources. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvt4mDZUefo________________ John MacArthur on the amazing fulfilled prophecy on Tyre and how it was fulfilled […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (1)

John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2)

August 1, 2013 – 12:10 am

John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 1)

July 30, 2013 – 1:32 am

John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 1) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)

Adrian Rogers: “Why I believe the Bible is true”

July 9, 2013 – 8:38 am

Adrian Rogers – How you can be certain the Bible is the word of God Great article by Adrian Rogers. What evidence is there that the Bible is in fact God’s Word? I want to give you five reasons to affirm the Bible is the Word of God. First, I believe the Bible is the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian RogersBiblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (0)

The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy by Jim Wallace

June 24, 2013 – 9:47 am

Is there any evidence the Bible is true? Articles By PleaseConvinceMe Apologetics Radio The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy Jim Wallace A Simple Litmus Test There are many ways to verify the reliability of scripture from both internal evidences of transmission and agreement, to external confirmation through archeology and science. But perhaps the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical ArchaeologyCurrent Events | Edit|Comments (0)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part M “Old Testament prophecy fulfilled?”Part 3(includes film DEATH BY SOMEONE’S CHOICE)

April 19, 2013 – 1:52 am

  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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferProlife | Edit|Comments (0)

Evidence for the Bible

March 27, 2013 – 9:43 pm

Here is some very convincing evidence that points to the view that the Bible is historically accurate. Archaeological and External Evidence for the Bible Archeology consistently confirms the Bible! Archaeology and the Old Testament Ebla tablets—discovered in 1970s in Northern Syria. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | E

——

Netflix Series AFTER LIFE Characters Examined in Light of Book of Ecclesiastes Part 3 Tom Basden as Matt

Tom Basden is great playing Matt who is both Tony’s boss and brother-in-law in AFTER LIFE.

After Life on Netflix

In the past I have done over 100 blog posts on the Netflix series AFTER LIFE written by Ricky Gervais and staring Ricky as Tony Johnson. I respect both Ricky and his character Tony for being people who demand evidence and they refuse to accept anything with a blind faith. That is part of the reason I started writing letters to Ricky several years ago with historical evidence from archaeology and ancient cultures on the Bible’s claims. I personally think his latest series AFTER LIFE is his best by far and it does a great job of examining Ricky’s humanistworldview and the natural conclusions that come from this time plus chance view of the world.

Just like Solomon in The Book of Ecclesiastes, Ricky in AFTER LIFE is examining life under the sun, which is life between birth and death without God in the picture. 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. In fact, the phrase under the sun appears 29 times in Ecclesiastes. 

Francis Schaefer indicated Ecclesiastes is truly the book of modern man because modern humanist man’s philosophy has brought him to the nihilistic conclusion that all is vanity and meaninglessness. This appears to be the place that the atheist Tony Johnson has landed and many of the characters around Tony have come to pessimistic conclusions about life too, though they have searched for satisfaction and meaning in life by pursuing ladiesluxurieslearninglaborliquor, and laughter.

After Life season 3 ricky gervais

In episode 1 of season 1 of AFTER LIFE we learn that Matt (played by Tom Basden) is Tony’s boss and his late wife’s brother, and Matt makes it his mission to find possible solutions to Tony’s unhappiness and in episode 2 he makes his first suggestion.

Matt: Why don’t you throw yourself into your work? That is what depressed do sometimes.

Tony: It is hard for me to throw myself into my work when my work is often talking to a plumber on the estate that is growing a potato that looks like Lionel Ritchie.

King Solomon also did the same thing in his life when he tried to get the meaning of his life from his work!

Ecclesiastes 1:3

English Standard Version (ESV)

3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?

Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.”
After wisdom Solomon comes to the great WORKS of men. Ecclesiastes 1:14, “I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is [p]vanity and striving after wind.” Solomon is the man with an empire at this disposal that speaks. This is the man who has the copper refineries in Ezion-geber. This is the man who made the stables across his empire. This is the man who built the temple in Jerusalem. This is the man who stands on the world trade routes. He is not a provincial. He knew what was happening on the Phonetician coast and he knew what was happening in Egypt. There is no doubt he already knew something of building. This is Solomon and he pursues the greatness of his own construction and his conclusion is VANITY AND VEXATION OF SPIRIT.

Ecclesiastes 2:18-20

18 Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me. 19 And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity. 20 Therefore I completely despaired of all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun.

He looked at the works of his hands, great and multiplied by his wealth and his position and he shrugged his shoulders.

Ecclesiastes 2:22-23

22 For what does a man get in all his labor and in his striving with which he labors under the sun? 23 Because all his days his task is painful and grievous; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is vanity.

Man can not rest and yet he is never done and yet the things which he builds will out live him. If one wants an ironical three phrases these are they. There is a Dutch saying, “The tailor makes many suits but one day he will make a suit that will outlast the tailor.”

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Many have tried sexual exploits just like Solomon did, and many have thrown their efforts into business too. Sadly Solomon also found the pursuit of great works in his LABOR just as empty. In Ecclesiastes 2:11 he asserted, “THEN I CONSIDERED ALL THAT MY HANDS HAD DONE AND THE TOLL I HAD EXPENDED IN DOING IT, AND BEHOLD, ALL WAS VANITY AND A STRIVING AFTER WIND, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

Many people through history have reminded me of Solomon because they are looking for lasting meaning in their life and they are looking in the same 6 areas that King Solomon did in what I call the 6 big L words. He looked into learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and LABOR (2:4-6, 18-20).

Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”

Ricky Gervais grew up in a Christian how and he rejected Christianity while in junior high school, but has he ever had the opportunity to look at the Old Testament prophecy’s accuracy? Let me share a short article by Adrian Rogers (1931-2005) who was my pastor when I was growing up in the 1970’s and 1980’s. (Just like Ricky Gervais I was born in 1961.)

Adrian Rogers pictured below

Image result for adrian rogers

The Passion of the Christ: The Crucifixion.

Image result for crucifixion of jesus the passion of christ


The Amazing Prophecy of the Cross
by Adrian Rogers

Psalm 22 is an incredible chapter. Perhaps more than any other chapter in the Bible, you cannot read it and come away not loving the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Turn to Psalm 22. Just below the name of a psalm, often the name of the one who wrote it is given. Who is the human author of Psalm 22?

Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, almost half (73) of the Bible’s 150 psalms were written by King David.

One thousand years before Jesus Christ, David prophetically foretold His crucifixion.

Since crucifixion was a Roman, not Jewish, form of execution, how is that possible?  Crucifixion was completely unknown to the Jewish culture. It would be another 800 years before crucifixion came into the Jewish world. But here we find by divine inspiration a portrait of the cross.

Psalm 22King James Version

22 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.

But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,

He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts.

10 I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly.

11 Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.

12 Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.

13 They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

17 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.

18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

19 But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me.

20 Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.

21 Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.

22 I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.

23 Ye that fear the Lord, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.

24 For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.

25 My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him.

26 The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the Lord that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.

27 All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.

28 For the kingdom is the Lord’s: and he is the governor among the nations.

29 All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.

30 A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.

31 They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.

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MUSIC MONDAY The Beatles Anthology 5 Shea Stadium New York 15th August 1965

https://youtu.be/YqCfJPdr6fI

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https://youtu.be/qZsJMAPckcY

You may be interested in links to the other posts I have done on the Beatles and you can click on the link below: FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE PART 288, LINKS TO 3 YEARS OF BEATLES POSTS (March of 2015 to Feb of 2018) Featured artist is Mark Dion

Ladies and gentlemen

Honoured by their country
decorated by their Queen
and loved here in America…
Here are the Beatles!
Shea Stadium New York 15th August 1965
Thank you very much. We’d like to carry on now
with a song which was one of our records a few months ago
This song is called I Feel Fine
I never felt people came to hear our show
I felt they came to see us
Because from the count-in on the first number
the volume of screams
would just drown everything out
Vox made us special big amplifiers for that tour
They were 100 watts
We went up from the 30 watt amp to the 100 watt amp
Neil Aspinall Tour Manager That was miked up, I think, to the big speakers round Shea Stadium
so the audience weren’t necessarily listening to the sound from the stage
They were listening to what was coming from the PA system
We were just working off the normal columns, which were…
So it can’t have sounded too good
Can you hear me?
We’d like to do a slow song now
It’s also off ‘Beatles VI’ or something. I don’t know what it’s off
I haven’t got it
It’s a waltz, this one. Remember that
Anyway, the song’s called, hopefully enough… aah, look at her!
It’s called Baby’s in Black
The next song we’d like to sing…
John was having a good time. He was into his comedy, which was great
The great thing about John, if there was ever a tense show –
which that undoubtedly was –
you can’t play to that many people for the first time and not be tense –
his comedy would come in and he’d start the faces
The shoulders would start going and it was very encouraging
because at least we’re not taking it seriously
If you look at that footage and see how we are acting
or reacting to the place
it’s very big, it’s very strange
I feel that on that show
John cracked up, just went mad
Not mentally ill, just got crazy
If you see him, he’s playing the electric piano with his elbows
It was a really strange thing
We did I’m Down
I did the organ on the record and decided to play it on stage for the first time
I felt naked without a guitar and George couldn’t play for laughing
I was doing it for a laugh
It was marvellous, the biggest crowd we’d ever played to
The biggest live show that I think anybody’s ever done
and it was fantastic
That was a good experience, the first really big open air…
“Wow, look at this!” you know
I didn’t think about it like that at the time
I personally didn’t realise that it was the first really big open air…
You know, 55000 people
Even now it’s a big crowd, 56000
But then-it’s like old money – it seemed like millions of people
60000 people
They told me it was 70
On one or another trip, we met Elvis
It was one of the highlights of our visit
but by the time we’d got near his house we’d forgotten where we were going
We were in this Cadillac limousine
You know, in LA, everything goes round and round and round
Then I think we were going along Mulholland…
We had a couple of cups of tea in the back of the car
By the time we got to Elvis’s house we forgot where we were going
It didn’t really matter where we were going
Bel Air, actually. The meet was arranged and we were going to see him
I was pretty excited about it all and then we arrived
We pulled up at these big gates – we’re going to see Elvis!
We all fell out of the car, just like in a Beatles cartoon
All in hysterics… trying to pretend we weren’t… silly
In the house, Elvis was sitting on a couch, playing a Fender bass –
plugged in an amplifier – watching the TV
And it was “Oh, there’s Elvis”
It was Elvis. He just looked like Elvis
He was the King, wasn’t he? It was Elvis
This is Mr Hips, you know. Hip-swivelling man!
Wow, you know, that’s Elvis!
He was playing Mohair Sam all evening
He played it endlessly on a jukebox. It was the record of the moment for him
So it was great to see he’s a music fan, he’s not just…
because that was one of our big records of the moment too
He had a TV going all the time, which is what I do anyway
In front of the TV, he had a massive Fender bass amplifier
with a big bass plugged in it
He was playing bass all the time with the picture up on the TV
so we just got in there and played with him
We plugged in whatever was around and we all played and sang
I never jammed with Elvis at all
John said he’d… – John jammed with Elvis
It must have been when we went out of the room
I think it was because he had a bass there, so I thought…
So I thought you know… bass, hey, this is interesting
Ringo played football with him – Yeah, I played football with Elvis
Round about 10 or 10.30…
Priscilla was brought in
She had a long thing on… and a tiara
I’ve got this picture of her like… as a sort of Barbie doll
with kind of purple gingham and a gingham bow in her very beehive hair
I spent most of the party trying to suss out if anybody had any reefer
I think it wouldn’t have mattered to me if she was there
Because it was him I came to see
I don’t remember the boys he had with him
All his gang-the Memphis Mafia or whatever they call them
He was surrounded by these sycophants
“I’m going to the loo now.” “OK, Elv, we’ll go with you.” Strange
I was so angry that he wasn’t making any music, as he should have been
We were asking about this, just making movies
and not doing any personal appearances or TV
I think he enjoys making movies so much
If we don’t do personal appearances, we get bored quickly
He says he misses it a bit
He was great, just how I expected him
It just sort of faded out, you couldn’t get close
It’s not like we could have become good friends, it was impossible
We weren’t buddies or anything, but he was really nice
He was a nice guy, he was very slim, you know
He was really good. I’m glad I met him
It was one of the great meetings in my life
The saddest part is now, years and years later
we found out that he tried to have us banished from America
because he was very big with the C.I.A. and everything
It’s very sad to me that he felt so threatened
That he thought, like a lot of people, that we were bad for American youth
In ’62 we were touring in a van and people were laughing at us
That’s how our careers started. They were laughing at us in Scotland
Then they got interested and got to really listen and like us
Then this screaming thing started
They used us as an excuse to go mad
The world did, then blamed it on us
We were just in the middle, in a car or hotel room. We couldn’t do much
We couldn’t go out, we couldn’t do anything
For us it was a drag – we knew they wouldn’t hear anything
because it’s just like a riot, not like a show
It felt dangerous because everybody was out of hand
Even the cops were just caught up in the mania
It was like they were this big movie
We felt trapped in the middle while everybody else was going mad
We were actually the sanest people in the whole thing
The realisation was kicking in that nobody was listening
That was OK in the beginning
but even worse than that is that we were playing so bad
We were now a big band. When we went ‘Whooahh’ and shook our heads
everyone went mad
I don’t really think it was that bad
I was playing just shit
all I could do was… hold down the off-beat
I couldn’t come off that, really
because if you went to do anything on the toms, it was just nothing
There was no noise
I just felt that we were playing really bad
I’d joined the Beatles because they were the best band in Liverpool
I wanted to play with good players and that’s what it was all about
First and foremost, we were musicians
George Martin Record Producer Their musical creativity showed no signs of flagging
On the contrary, they were becoming more and more productive
The work they were giving me was much more interesting
They were finding new frontiers all the time
Our whole attitude was changing
We’d grown up a little
I think grass was really influential in a lot of our changes
Especially with the writers
Because they were writing different stuff, we were playing differently
We were all expanding in all areas of our life
opening up to a lot of different attitudes

The Beatles Anthology 5 [Legendado/Parte 2] HD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHh2rLWfHWA

The direction was changing away from the Thank You Girl poppy stuff
the early stuff – From Me to You, She Loves You
All the early stuff was directly relating to your fans
kind of saying, please buy this record
Thank You Girl, PS I Love You, it was all very that
There came a point where we’d done enough of that and branched out
into songs that are a bit more surreal, more entertaining
Other people were arriving on the scene who were a little bit influential
I don’t really know whether we’d been influenced
Dylan was starting to influence us quite heavily at that point
When it got sort of contemporary as it were, a contemporary influence
I think Rubber Soul was about when it started happening
It was just around that period
when we were all getting into different kinds of music
George’s became Indian
We were all listening to classical music and various types of music
other than our own and our rock’n’roll roots
and George moved into the Indian thing
He’d give you a better explanation of just when it was
During the filming of Help!
there were some Indian musicians in a restaurant scene
and I kind of messed around with the sitar then
During that year, towards the end of the year
I kept hearing the name Ravi Shankar. I heard it about three times
About the third time I heard it, a friend of mine said:
“Have you heard Ravi Shankar?”
So I went out and bought the record
and that was it, I just felt…
It felt very familiar to me to listen to that music
It was around that time I bought a sitar
I bought a cheap sitar in a shop called India Craft in London
It was lying around. I hadn’t figured out what to do with it
When we were working on Norwegian Wood it just needed something
and it was quite spontaneous, from what I remember
I just picked up the sitar, found the notes and just played it
We miked it up and put it on and it just seemed to hit the spot
They were getting more and more interested in unusual sounds
They were trying out new instruments and saying to me:
“What ideas have you got for this?”
Yesterday had been the first time we used other instrumentalists on records
The only person who’d played with them before was me
Now we had a group of other musicians
so we weren’t averse to using other people or other sounds
Rubber Soul was an indication of the way things were going. A great album
That’s my favourite-at the time I think it was the best we’d made
We certainly knew we were making a good album
You know the cover, the photo where we looked stretched
That was the kind of thing that we were all very into
That kind of random little exciting thing that would happen
The photographer, Bob Freeman, had taken pictures at John’s house
We just had our new gear on, the polo necks
We were doing straight mug shots, four of us all posing
Back in London, he was in someone’s flat
He was showing us a little carousel of slides
and he had a piece of cardboard that was album cover size
He was projecting the photographs on to it, planning an album cover
We’d just chosen the photo. We said “That one looks good”
We all liked ourselves in one particular shot
and he was just winding up when the card it was on fell back a bit
It elongated the photo and we went “Can you do it like that?”
He said “Yeah, I could print it like that” so we thought, that’s it… Rubber Soul!
So there’s no great mysterious meaning behind all of this
It was just four boys working out what to call their new album
I don’t see too much difference in Rubber Soul and Revolver
To me, they could be volume one and two
Maybe I’m wrong, I haven’t played them right back to back
but they were both very pleasant and enjoyable records for me
It has that quality because it’s the follow on
and we were just starting to really find ourselves in the studio
You know, what we could do, which was…
over just being four of us playing our instruments and the vocals
Their ideas were beginning to become much more potent in the studio
They started to tell me what they wanted and would press me for ideas
More ways of translating those ideas into reality
We’d be well into the album and we knew I’d be doing a number somewhere
We’d say “Have you got a song?” or “We’ve got this for you”
I thought it might not be a bad idea…
rather than giving him a very serious song
because he wasn’t that keen on singing
I remember the idea coming up just before going to sleep
That little twilight moment when silly ideas come into your head
I just thought of Yellow Submarine
By then, I’d started writing myself
but it was hard to bring your songs in when you had Lennon and McCartney
It was a bit of a joke because I’d bring these songs I’d written
and they’d laugh because I’d re-written an old standard again
I was great at re-writing Jerry Lee Lewis songs
I didn’t have many songs. They were more or less the ones I had written
I’ve always had a couple I was working on or thinking about
and in the later years I did have a huge backlog
but in the mid-60s I didn’t have too many
George went through the same problem as I did with his first songs
but that didn’t last long
Then we started coming up with great songs. Which one of us was on Revolver?
That was the point where you discover you’re not actually…
you’re paying more money to the taxman…
You’re so happy that you’re finally earning money, then you find out…
In those days we paid 19s.6d. out of every û1
There were 20 shillings in û1
That was with super-tax, surtax and tax-tax and stuff
It was ridiculous
A heavy penalty to pay for making money
It was on Revolverthat we have the track Tomorrow Never Knows
which was a great innovation
That’s me in my Tibetan Book of the Dead period
and the expression Tomorrow Never Knows was another of Ringo’s
I was self-conscious about the lyrics of Tomorrow Never Knows
so I took one of Ringo’s malapropisms like Hard Day’s Night
to take the edge off the heavy philosophical lyrics
John had a song which was all on the chord of C
which we thought a perfectly good idea, like Indian music is all on one chord
I wondered how George Martin would take it-it was a radical departure
At least we’d had three chords and maybe a change for the middle eight
Suddenly this was just John strumming on C rather earnestly
In those days there was no technology like there is now
There were two guitars, bass and drums, and that was it
If we did stuff in the studio with the aid of recording tricks
then we couldn’t just reproduce them on stage
Nowadays you could do Tomorrow Never Knows, have all the loops on a keyboard
You could have as many pianists, drummers and orchestras as you wanted
But in those days we were just a little dance hall band
and we never thought of augmenting ourselves
The hard stuff was the complicated harmonies, hard to do live on stage
Like for instance Nowhere Man
Nowhere Man was OK, wasn’t it? – It was OK, but it was hard
Circus Krone Munich
Somewhere between albums and tours… I had a dentist, anyway…
One night, John and his wife Cynthia
and Patti and myself were having dinner at this guy’s house
This fellow, for some reason or other,
had obtained lysergic acid diethylamide 25
which at that time was not illegal
It was a legally obtained medication
But we didn’t really know about it
I seemed to recall that I’d heard vaguely about it
but I didn’t really know what it was
He just put it in our coffee
He didn’t know what it was, just…
It’s the thing with middle class London swingers who’d heard about it
They didn’t know it was different from pot or pills and they gave us it
He advised us to stay. We thought it was for an orgy and we didn’t want to know
It became a bit seedy to me
As if he was trying to get something happening in his house
There was some reason he didn’t want us to go
Then he said “Leave your car here, I’ll drive and you can come back later”
I said “No, we’ll go in my car,” and we drove. This guy came as well, in his car
We got to the nightclub
We were just insane. We all thought there was a fire in the lift
Just a little red light and we were all screaming, all hysterical
We went up to the floor where the discotheque was
The door opens and we all go aaaaaah!!
We felt lke the elevator was on fire or we were going into hell or something
We were all in hysterics, crazy
Then we got out at the top and everything was OK
We sat there, probably for hours, and I ended up driving everybody home
It was daylight and I was driving a Mini with John, Cynthia and Patti
I seem to remember we were doing 18 miles an hour
And I was really concentrating
Some of the time it just felt normal
then suddenly it was all crazy
I really was frightened of that kind of stuff
When you’re young, you’re taught… watch out for them devil drugs
So when acid came round, we’d heard that you’re never the same
It alters your life and you never think the same again
I think John was rather excited by that prospect. I was rather frightened
I thought this could mean that I’d never get back home
Oh geez, you know. It may not be the greatest move
So I delayed and was seen to stall a bit within the group –
because there was a lot of peer pressure
Day Tripper– That was a drug song, I just liked the word
The last Saturday Club show… We’ll ever do…
The last Saturday Club before Christmas, we’d like…
to wish everybody a very happy Crimble from all of us
and thank everyone who sent cards this week and all the other weeks
I hope you all have a happy Christmas and a very happy New Year
Nice of you to drop in today, ladsOh, we weren’t doing anything
Not at all, Brian. Like you said, Merry Christmas to you
We can’t ask you to work todayNo, it’s not allowed
We’ll play your record. Does it matter which side we play?
We Can Work It Out
Well, sort it out amongst yourselves then
Have you got it? Yeah, I’m putting it on now
Here goes the needle on the record
Well, the mania was…
As we’ve said, it was pretty difficult to get around
Out of convenience, we decided we were not going to go in
Going to the TV studios to promote our records was too much of a hassle
We’ll just make our own little films and we’ll put them out
What was happening…
We really couldn’t fit in all the live television shows
that people wanted us to do round the world: Shindig, Ed Sullivan Show
Top of the Pops, Thank Your Lucky Stars and stuff in France, Germany, etc.
So to accommodate those people
we decided that if we just made – we call them promo films –
a promo film of the individual songs
and sent that to TV stations around the world
That would fulfil their obligation, or that would do the job
The idea was that we didn’t have to go out
We thought this was a great idea, to send the movies, the film
We didn’t call them videos, they were just going on TV
We thought this was a great ruse
Let’s do these and we can stay home
Ladies and gentlemen, here’s a feature taped for us in England
by Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison
Hello, Ed, how are you?
I’m sorry we can’t be there in person to do the show
but everybody’s busy these days, with the washing and the cooking…
We hope you like it. One’s called Rain and one’s called Paperback Writer
The idea was to send them to America because we can’t go everywhere
We’ll send these things out to promote the record
These days, everybody does that
It’s just part of your promotion for a single
so I suppose in a way we invented MTV
That’s the first record with backwards music on it
Haneda Airport Tokyo 30th June 1966
This is a thing we never really talked about
Everywhere we were going in those days, it was a demonstration of something
Riots were happening
Plus people were demonstrating because the Budokan
was supposed to be a spiritual hall reserved for martial arts
Some Japanese say that your performances will violate the Budokan
which is devoted to traditional Japanese martial arts
and you set a bad example to Japanese youth
by leading them astray from traditional Japanese values. What do you think?
If a dancing troupe from Japan goes to Britain
nobody tries to say they’re violating traditional laws
or that they are trying to spoil anything
We’re singing here because we’ve been asked to
I’d rather watch singing than wrestling anyway
We’re not trying to violate anything
and we’re just as traditional anyway
In any town we went to, someone always had a grievance
Something was wrong
We were locked up in the hotel for a long time with merchants coming round
and showing us ivory and stuff like this
People go to Tokyo and do shopping. We couldn’t get out of the hotel
I once tried to get out but a policeman ran after me. I did actually do it…
Paul and maybe Ringo got out one day and got in a taxi
The police caught them and made them go back to the hotel
But John and I actually got out
We made it down to the local market and it was great
We were looking at things and buying things
Then the police came and got us and said “Naughty boys!”
We were only allowed out at the time for the concert
when it was worked out like a military manoeuvre
“At 5.30 precisely we will knock on your door”
Exactly as scheduled. Then they said “You will line up outside the room”
“At 5.32 we will leave the door”
“We will now walk to the lift”
“At 5.33 we will be at the elevator”
“The elevator takes one minute and eight to get down”
“At 5.35 we’ll be down in the car park”
Then they said “You will get in car with Mr Evans”
Then they had the seating arranged in all the cars
Amazing efficiency we’d never seen the like of in Britain
Just to be… how we were
They’d knock on the door and we’d never come out
It would just totally wreck their timing
You’d see all these guys going absolutely barmy
because we hadn’t walked down the corridor at 7.14 and a third
We knew we were doing that to them
As we went to the gig, they had the fans organised
with police patrols on each corner
so there weren’t fans haphazardly waving along the streets
They’d been herded on to corners and were allowed to wave from there
So you’d go along the street and there would be a little ‘eeekk’
You would go a few more hundred yards and ‘eeekk’
It was very strange. The audience were very nice
They’re reserved but they were up on their feet, or they tried to be
but the police had telephoto lenses all around and anybody who stood up
and looked like they might run towards the stage or something
had their photograph taken
So the people were very restricted in how they could respond to us
But it was a warm reception
It was very nice but a bit clinical
Nippon Budokan Hall
Ladies and gentlemen, let’s welcome the Beatles!
The close harmonies on things like Paperback Writerand Nowhere Man
were very hard to do on stage because it was just empty
There were no guitar notes to take it from
We had an eight-track by then, that was the problem
So we had the luxury of double tracking
Also, we were competing with the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and all that
I think it was around that time
All the voices were really like double tracked…
There was no way of doing it on stage really
Evening Performance 30th June 1966
You’d get to the point where it was particularly bad
Then we’d do our Elvis legs and wave to the crowd
and they’d all scream and it would cover it up
I think Paul already said that the screaming
covered a lot of worrying moments
The screams did cover a lot of of sins…
and those shows, it wasn’t there
The second show was pretty good, but the first one was a bit of a shock
You mean we actually played better in the thirty minutes we had?
Yeah, I guess so
Well, that’s probably true
Afternoon Performance 1st July 1966
I think it just started to hit everybody. I remember we had one meeting…
We were mainly talking about the musicianship going downhill
Never mind the boredom of doing it
There was always so much pressure, from the minute you opened your eyes
People trying to get at you for whatever reason
To be friends or to get an interview or to do a radio
The pressure was on from the minute you started
The Philippines was almost like a mistake from the very beginning
As soon as we got there, it was bad, bad news
I hated the Philippines
It was one of those places where you knew they were waiting for a fight
They were pushing you and, if you’d done anything, they would have…
Subtitles: Screentext

Dershowitz Warns Against ‘New McCarthyism’ of Left


—-

Dershowitz Warns Against ‘New McCarthyism’ of Left

alan dershowitz walks downs the steps of the capitol with the dome lit behind him.Attorney Alan Dershowitz, in 2020 when he was a member of President Donald Trump’s legal team. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)By Newsmax Wires 
Sunday, 14 Feb 2021 1:56 PM

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Former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz on Sunday blasted the “new McCarthyism” of the Democrats’ “hard left.”

In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Dershowitz, a constitutional law expert, said some liberals have become radical censors of free speech.

“Common Cause, which purports to be a liberal, not a radical organization, has now demanded that Facebook keep Donald Trump off its platform,” he said. “We are getting liberals… [calling for] Fox News [to be] taken off the networks. I hated communism but I defended the rights of lawyers to defend accused communists.”

“If any lawyer is the subject of this kind of McCarthyism, I will represent you pro bono, in front of universities and bar associations,” he added. “I will dedicate myself that the new McCarthyism of the hard left doesn’t become American culture.”

Dershowitz called the Senate trial acquittal of former President Donald Trump a “great day” for the Constitution and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., — but “not such a good day” for Trump himself.

“McConnell “taught us a civic’s lesson: You don’t have to support President Trump or Donald Trump, you don’t have to agree with the speech, but support the First Amendment and the Constitution’s limitations on the power of the Senate to put a former president on trial,” he said.

“McConnell accepted the constitutional argument I’ve been making from the very beginning — that Congress has no power to put on trial Citizen Trump.”

On the flip side, Dershowitz said, Saturday was “not such a good day for Donald Trump because McConnell and others criticized him.”

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Tucker Carlson Tonight 2/10/21 | Tucker Carlson Tonight February 10, 2021

Alan Dershowitz to Newsmax TV: Dems Making Trump’s Case

By Eric Mack 
Wednesday, 10 Feb 2021 5:35 PM


In laying out a long-running objection to election fraud by former President Donald Trump, House impeachment managers are effectively making the case for the defense because the speech under the microscope is protected, even if they disagree with it, according to constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz on Newsmax TV.

“Very good theater, terrible constitutional law,” Dershowitz told “The Chris Salcedo Show” of the House Democrats’ opening statements Wednesday.

“The videos make good theater; they’re very riveting,” the noted legal scholar said. “”But they prove President Trump’s constitutional defense.”

House Democrats are emphasizing that Trump had long argued the election was stolen, but then they show how the president challenged it “by all lawful means and all political means,” Dershowitz told host Chris Salcedo.

“The Constitution protects a person that says the Earth is flat as much as a person who says it’s round,” Dershowitz said. “The Constitution protects a Holocaust denier as much as it does a historian who can prove that 6 million Jews were killed.

“And the Constitution, the First Amendment, protects a president who’s wrong about the election as much as a president who’s right.”

Instead of tying the lone article of impeachment — incitement of insurrection — solely on Trump’s Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally speech, which was delivered at a rally just before the Capitol siege, House Democrat impeachment managers are making a case that he’d long objected to a stolen election as a predicate to inciting the storming of the U.S. Capitol Building.

“Matters of opinion cannot be disputed or taken outside of constitutional protections,” Dershowitz said. “So I think the House managers were actually helping the Trump defense by trying to prove that what he said was false.”

Dershowitz did suggest that Democrats’ gaffe might be part of a plan to “lay a trap” for Trump defense lawyers — getting them to argue the validity of a stolen-election claim, which could derail the president’s case.

“That would be a serious mistake, because it would lose a number of senators who are now on their side,” Dershowitz concluded.

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I have read several books by Alan Dershowitz and he is a liberal but he does look at the constitution honestly and here he has made some very insightful observations that I am sure will upset Democrats but nonetheless will not slow them down from impeaching the President a second time because of their hate of all things Trump!

Dershowitz: Senate Rules Would Prevent Impeachment Trial Of Trump

Dershowitz: Senate Rules Would Prevent Impeachment Trial Of TrumpAn image from video of Alan Dershowitz, an attorney for President Donald Trump, walking from the podium after speaking on behalf of the president during the impeachment trial in the Senate on Jan. 27, 2020. (Senate Television via AP)By Newsmax Wires 
Sunday, 10 Jan 2021 2:42 PM

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Harvard law professor and constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz on Sunday warned an impeachment of President Donald Trump won’t go to trial — but could “lie around like a loaded weapon” for both parties in the future.

In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Dershowitz said a Senate trial of citizen Trump would be unconstitutional.

“It will not go to trial,” he said. “All Democrats can do is impeach the president in House of Representatives, for that you only need a majority vote. 

“The case cannot come to trial in the Senate” because of rules that do no allow it until, “according to the Majority Leader [Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.), until 1 p.m. on Jan. 20” — an hour after Trump leaves office.

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“Congress has no power to impeach or try a private citizen, whether it’d be a private citizen in Donald Trump or …. Barack Obama or anyone else,” he said. “The jurisdiction is limited to a sitting president and so there won’t be a trial.”

But Dershowitz said he worried more about  is“the impact of impeachment on the First Amendment.”

“For 100 years the Supreme Court and other courts have struggled to develop a juris prudence which distinguishes between advocacy and incitement.”

“To impeach a president for having exercised his First Amendment rights would be so dangerous to the Constitution, it would lie around like a loaded weapon ready to be used by either party against the other party and that’s not what impeachment nor the 25th amendment were intended to be,” Dershowitz said.

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Mark Levin Podcast * Mark’s radio show | 08 January 2021

Levin: Media ‘exploiting’ Capitol riot to ‘silence conservatives’ as Democrats work to ‘choke the system’

‘The media have played a huge, huge role in what’s going on in this country,’ says ‘Life, Liberty & Levin’ host

By Charles Creitz | Fox News

The mainstream media is “exploiting” Wednesday’s riot at the U.S. Capitol building in an effort to “silence” conservatives and Republicans, Mark Levin says on this week’s episode of “Life, Liberty & Levin.”

The host emphasizes that “we should be furious about what happened on Capitol Hill,” but adds that “the media have played a huge, huge role in what’s going on in this country.”

“We need to reject all this violence, but what about the media?” asks Levin before displaying front pages of various newspapers from around the country. 

“The New York Times: ‘Trump Incites Mob’. This is projection,” Levin contends. “This is projection. He never did that. Or The Washington Post: ‘Trump mob storms Capitol’. There were hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people there … That’s an awfully broad brush. Or the [New York] Daily News: ‘President Incites Insurrection’ … or USA Today: ‘Pro-Trump Mobs Storm US [sic] Capitol’. How about ‘Thugs Storm U.S. Capitol’? How about ‘Lawbreakers Storm U.S. Capitol’?”

Levin then calls out politicians like Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who he says are also “exploiting the situation.”

“They’re talking about impeaching the president of the United States or [invoking] the 25th Amendment nine days before he leaves office,” the host says. “Do they even know what’s involved in the 25th Amendment?

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“So they double down, they triple down, they quadruple down. They’re not going to change at all. On one side of their mouth, they talk about unity. Out of the other side of their mouth, they spit on people,” he goes on. “Seventy-four million [Trump-voting] people and more, they’re not going away. Their concerns still exist.”

Meanwhile, Levin says, House Democrats are working toward their goal to “choke the system even further” by passing a rules package for the 117th Congressthat makes it “virtually impossible for Republicans to even propose legislation or amend legislation, even though [they] only has a 10- or 11-person majority in the House.”

“Nancy Pelosi … eliminated 100 years of tradition …”, the host argues, “and the media are trying to intimidate conservatives and constitutionalists by projecting onto them the violence that occurred by reprobates and others who need to be tracked down and punished.

“So it seems that the lessons have not been learned,” Levin concludes. “They certainly haven’t been learned by the left, they certainly haven’t been learned by the media, and they certainly haven’t been learned by the Never Trumpers.”

—-

December 13, 2020

Office of Barack and Michelle Obama
P.O. Box 91000
Washington, DC 20066

Dear President Obama,

I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters. 

I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it. 

Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:

The story of how this postwar consensus broke down—starting with LBJ’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and his prediction that it would lead to the South’s wholesale abandonment of the Democratic Party—has been told many times before. The realignment Johnson foresaw ended up taking longer than he had expected. But steadily, year by year—through Vietnam, RIOTS…and Nixon’s southern strategy; through busing, Roe v. Wade, urban crime, and white flight; through affirmative action, the Moral Majority, union busting, and Robert Bork; through assault weapons bans and the rise of Newt Gingrich…and the Clinton impeachment—America’s voters and their representatives became more and more polarized.

During 2020 I have noticed lots of riots and looting across the USA and I wanted to ask you why it is always the liberals doing that? AND WHY DIDN’T ANYONE CONDEMN THESE ACTIONS AT THE 2020 CONVENTION AND DIDN’T YOU SPEAK AT THE CONVENTION TOO?

Philadelphia Riots Another Case of Street Violence Used to Advance Radical Political Agendas

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/10/28/philadelphia-riots-are-another-case-of-street-violence-used-to-advance-radical-political-agendas/embed/#?secret=TeMODTeKco

Philadelphia Riots Are Another Case of Street Violence Used to Advance Radical Political Agendas

James Carafano @JJCarafano / October 28, 2020 / 4 Comments

Philadelphia Riots

In Kenosha, Portland, Seattle, and Chicago, city officials have tolerated criminal activity performed by mobs for politically motivated reasons. Philadelphia appears to be the next hotspot for mob violence to go unchecked. Pictured: A barricade is set on fire during a night of looting and violence in Philadelphia on Oct. 27. (Photo: Gabriella Audi/AFP/Getty Images)

COMMENTARY BY

James Carafano@JJCarafano

James Jay Carafano, a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, is The Heritage Foundation’s vice president for foreign and defense policy studies, E. W. Richardson fellow, and director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies. Read his research.

Like the replay of a bad movie, a law enforcement incident in Philadelphia triggered an excuse for violence and looting. It remains to be seen whether the City of Brotherly Love will become the next “Kenosha,” where city officials moved quickly to restore order and seek state and federal support—though sadly after 48 hours of opportunistic looting, violence, and destruction devastated the city.

Or perhaps Philadelphia will be the next PortlandSeattle, or Chicago, where systemic attacks seem to be a daily occurrence.

Police in Philadelphia are fully capable of restoring peace. The open question is whether the mayor and Larry Krasner, the former defense attorney-turned elected rogue prosecutor, will do their job and hold people accountable for their crimes.

When local, state, and federal governments work together, act quickly, and demonstrate no tolerance for organized violence to advance radical agendas, communities are kept safe and equal protection under the law is afforded for all citizens.

The left is actively working to undermine the integrity of our elections. Read the plan to stop them now. Learn more now >>

On the other hand, when local officials, the media, and politicians ignore, excuse, normalize, and enable violence, everyday Americans pay the price.

There is a plague sweeping this country that many don’t want to talk about: The deliberate use of street violence to advance radical political agendas, often under a smoke screen of campaigning for civil liberties. The evidence of organized criminal activity at the root of the outbreaks in American cities is mounting.

The list of people enabling this violence sadly includes some public officials, who are principally responsible for ensuring public safety. For example, a growing threat to peaceful communities is “rogue prosecutors,” former criminal defense attorneys recruited and funded by liberal billionaire backers, who—once elected—abuse their office by refusing to prosecute entire categories of crimes.

These rogue prosecutors are usurping the power of the legislature in the process, and ignoring victim’s rights—all to advance their politics.

Baltimore is a perfect  example. Since being sworn into office, under the watch of Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby.

Rogue prosecutors fuel street violence by refusing to prosecute rioters and looters. When confronted with the rising crimes rates, Mosby called the statistics “rhetoric.”

The only way to break the cycle of violence is for local and state officials to work with each other, and if necessary, the federal government. They need to stop enabling the destruction of property and lives on their streets, and start investigating and prosecuting the individuals (and organizations) behind the riots.

It’s time to start shaming and calling out the media, politicians, and advocates who excuse and normalize the violence.

There is a proven action plan for making our streets safe. It is past time for officials to start following this blueprint.

There is no time—zero time to waste. There are already fears of more violence in our streets, regardless of the outcome of the national elections.

In my hometown of Washington, D.C., downtown buildings are already boarding up in anticipation of violence on our streets after the election. If Trump wins, violence. If Biden wins, violence. This makes no sense, and it’s time for it to stop.

It is time for every official and public figure, every political party, in every part of the country to publically reject violence on American streets as a legitimate form of protected speech. Violence is not protected speech, period.

The notion of deliberately destroying the lives and property of our neighbors to advance a radical political agenda is abhorrent. American leaders—of all stripes—should stand up now as one and reject these violent acts. It has gone on for too long, well before the death of George Floyd.

Leaders in Philadelphia and across America must take a principled stand to demand the end to this violence, and they need to do it before the election. In one voice, they should demand: “Leave our streets alone.”

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com

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Open letter to President Obama (Part 293) (Founding Fathers’ view on Christianity, Elbridge Gerry of MA)

April 10, 2013 – 7:02 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David BartonFounding FathersPresident Obama | Edit |Comments (0)

The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 5, John Hancock)

May 8, 2012 – 1:48 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David BartonFounding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)

The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 4, Elbridge Gerry)

May 7, 2012 – 1:46 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David BartonFounding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)

The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 3, Samuel Adams)

May 4, 2012 – 1:45 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David BartonFounding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)

The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 2, John Quincy Adams)

May 3, 2012 – 1:42 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David BartonFounding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)

The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 1, John Adams)

May 2, 2012 – 1:13 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)

President Obama and the Founding Fathers

May 8, 2013 – 9:20 am

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, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding FathersPresident Obama | Edit | Comments (0)

Francis Schaeffer’s own words concerning the founding fathers and their belief in inalienable rights

December 5, 2012 – 12:38 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding FathersFrancis SchaefferProlife | Edit |Comments (1)

David Barton: In their words, did the Founding Fathers put their faith in Christ? (Part 4)

May 30, 2012 – 1:35 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David BartonFounding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticutjohn witherspoonjonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)

Were the founding fathers christian?

May 23, 2012 – 7:04 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)

John Quincy Adams a founding father?

June 29, 2011 – 3:58 pm

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David BartonFounding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)

“Sanctity of Life Saturday” Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part E “Moral absolutes and abortion” Francis Schaeffer Quotes part 5(includes the film SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS) (editorial cartoon)

July 6, 2013 – 1:26 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas TimesFrancis SchaefferProlife | Edit |Comments (0)

Article from Adrian Rogers, “Bring back the glory”

June 11, 2013 – 12:34 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian RogersFrancis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)

“Schaeffer Sundays” Francis Schaeffer’s own words concerning the possibility that minorities may be mistreated under 51% rule

June 9, 2013 – 1:21 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)

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Trump’s impeachment attorney goes viral after exchange with CBS reporter

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Trump’s Lawyer Totally Owns CBS News Anchor Lana Zak in Live Interview

Trump’s impeachment attorney goes viral after exchange with CBS reporter

Michael van der Veen, one of former President Trump’s lawyers at the impeachment trial, went viral Saturday after an interview with CBS News’ streaming service called CBSN.

The lawyer, who had just won his case, was interviewed by Lana Zak, an anchor from the network, who he accused of trying to downplay Democrat impeachment managers who he said doctored evidence during the trial.

The interview seemed to get tense after Zak asked him about beginning his defense by stating that there was no “insurrection” at the Capitol, but then– in his closing argument, “seemingly admitted that there was, in fact, an insurrection.” She said he used the word during the argument.

Van der Veen shot back and said she did not understand the case. He said he only used the word “insurrection” when he quoted the charging documents.

What happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was absolutely horrific,” he said. “But what happened at the Capitol during this trial was not too far away from that.”

He said the Democrat impeachment managers failed to do their homework and—desperate to make a case—”doctored evidence.”

Zak followed up his answer by clarifying for viewers that he was referring to allegations that the impeachment managers put the wrong date in a tweet, selectively edited videos and added a blue checkmark on a Twitter account submitted as evidence. Zak’s defenders said she was doing her job as a journalist to get her audience up to speed about what exactly van der Veen was referring to.

But van der Veen took her explanation as an attempt to downplay a serious allegation against the prosecutors in the case. He asked her: those allegations “aren’t enough for you?”

Zak told him that she is not a juror in the trial, but van der Veen tied the comment to the bias in the media.

“It’s not OK to doctor a little bit of evidence,” he said.

She responded, “I did not say that it was OK.”

“The media has to start telling the right story in this country,” he said. “The media is trying to divide this country. You are bloodthirsty for ratings, and as such, you’re asking questions now that are already set up with a fact pattern. I can’t believe that you would ask me a question indicating that it’s alright to doctor just a little bit of evidence. There’s more stuff that we uncovered that they doctored, to be frank with you.”

He said the media should be looking into the allegation in a “square, straight way.”

impeachment managers of changing the date on a tweet in an effort to tie it to the deadly riot.

Van der Veen said the media, in general, is playing a leading role in the country’s divide because it plays for an audience, and politicians play for these news outlets for favorable coverage.

Why the Left Has to Suppress Free Speech

Dennis Prager @DennisPrager / January 19, 2021

Ibram X. Kendi visits Build to discuss the book “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You” at Build Studio March 10, 2020, in New York City. (Photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

COMMENTARY BY

Dennis Prager@DennisPrager

Dennis Prager is a columnist for The Daily Signal, nationally syndicated radio host, and creator of PragerU.

Let us begin with this fact: The left always suppresses speech. Since Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, there has been no example of the left in control and not crushing dissent. 

That is one of the important differences between liberal and left: Liberalism and liberals believe in free speech. 

(The present leftist threat to freedom in America, the greatest threat to freedom in American history, is made possible because liberals think they have more to fear from conservatives than from the left. Liberals do not understand that the left regards liberals as their useful idiots.)

The left controls universities. There is little or no dissent allowed at universities.

The Left has declared war on our culture, but we should never back down, nor compromise our principles. Learn more now >>

The left controls nearly every “news” medium. There is little or no dissent in the mainstream media—not in the “news” sections and not in the opinion sections.

The left controls Hollywood. No dissent is allowed in Hollywood.

That is why we have “cancel culture”—the silencing and firing of anyone who publicly dissents from the left, and even “publicly” is no longer necessary. 

The National Association of Realtors has just announced that if you express dissenting views (on race, especially) in private, you may be fined and lose your membership in the organization—which effectively ends your career as a realtor.

So, we return to the opening question: Why does the left need to crush all dissent? This is a question made all the more stark because there is no parallel on the right: Conservatives do not shut down dissent or debate.

The answer, though the left will not acknowledge it, is the left fears dissent. And it does so for good reason. Leftism is essentially a giant balloon filled with nothing but hot air. Therefore, no matter how big the balloon—the Democratic Party, The New York Times, Yale University—all it takes is a mere pin to burst it.

Leftism is venerated by intellectuals. But there is little intellectual substance to leftism. It is a combination of doctrine and emotion. The proof? Those with intellectual depth do not stifle dissent; they welcome it.

That is why universities are so opposed to conservatives coming to speak on campus. One articulate conservative can undo years of left-wing indoctrination in a one-hour talk or Q&A. I know this from personal experience on campuses. You can, too. 

Watch the speeches given by any conservatives allowed to speak on a campus—many of these talks are still on YouTube—and you will see large halls filled with students yearning to hear something other than left-wing pablum. Look at their faces, filled with rapt attention to ideas they never heard that are clearly having an impact. 

Universities are entirely right to fear our coming to speak. We come with the pin that bursts their $50,000-a-year balloon.

That is also why it is so hard to get any of them to debate any of us. In 35 years of radio, I have never mistreated or bullied a guest. I was unfailingly polite to an icon of the left, Howard Zinn, the America-hating author of the America-hating “A People’s History of the United States.” 

I even invited a UCLA political science professor and violinist, one of seven members of the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra who refused to play when I conducted the orchestra in a Joseph Haydn symphony in the Disney Concert Hall—solely because I’m a conservative. 

Despite his public letter, in which he accused me of holding “horribly bigoted positions” and wrote, “Please urge your friends to not attend this concert, which helps normalize bigotry in our community,” I nevertheless invited him on my national radio show. He agreed. 

I had him in studio for an entire hour and treated him and his wife (who accompanied him) with great respect, despite my contempt for his false accusations and his advocacy of the cancel culture. Every American should hear that hour.

Unfortunately for the emotional and intellectual health of our society, he, Zinn, and a few others were anomalies. Of the 100 or so left-wing authors, professors, and columnists invited to appear on my show, almost none has responded in the affirmative. They prefer NPR, where they are never challenged.

The opposite, however, is not true: Every conservative intellectual I know says yes to every one of the (very few) left-wing invitations we receive. Of course, we are almost never invited. We regularly invite leftists. Leftists almost never invite us. 

They claim it’s because we are not up to their intellectual level and they have no desire to waste their time. One would think that the opportunity to publicly show how vapid we conservatives really are would be too good to pass up.

Leftists do not debate us or appear as guests on our shows and prevent us from speaking whenever possible, because they (correctly) fear conservatives. 

Race-baiters such as Ibram X. Kendi or Ta-Nehisi Coates or “White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo would never debate Larry Elder, for example. 

Why won’t they? Because they would be shown to be the intellectually shallow purveyors of hate they are. Deep down, they know it. Elder is one of many conservative black intellectuals who left-wing blacks (and whites) refuse to debate.

Now you know why the left suppresses free speech: because it has to. If there is free speech, there is dissent. And if there is dissent, there is no more left.

COPYRIGHT 2021 CREATORS.COM

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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January 13, 2021

Office of Barack and Michelle Obama
P.O. Box 91000
Washington, DC 20066

Dear President Obama,

I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters. 

I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it. 

Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:

 I can provide the exact quote here, because in the audience that night was a freelance writer who was recording me. To her mind, my answer risked reinforcing negative stereotypes some Californians already had about working-class white voters and was therefore worth blogging about on Huffington Post. (It’s a decision I respect, by the way, though I wish she had talked to me about it before writing the story. This is what separates even the most liberal writers from their conservative counterparts—the willingness to flay politicians on their own side.)

If liberal writers hold Democrats feet to the fire then why did the liberal media delay reporting the news on Hunter Biden?

Ric Grenell calls out CNN’s Jake Tapper for belatedly covering Hunter Biden story

‘This story broke in October. You didn’t do it then,’ former acting DNI scolded the CNN anchor

By Joseph A. Wulfsohn | Fox News

Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell took a shot at CNN anchor Jake Tapper Wednesday for finally acknowledged the controversies surrounding Hunter Biden.

Tapper was the first anchor on CNN to address the statement released by the president-elect’s son revealing his “tax affairs” were being investigated by the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Tapper shared a CNN report about the investigation on Twitter, which caught Grenell’s attention. 

“This story broke in October. You didn’t do it then,” said Grenell, who then asked Tapper point-blank: “Were you instructed to ignore it until after the election?”

CNN did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

Grenell’s question appears to be valid after recordings leaked by Project Veritas last week revealed that CNN President Jeff Zucker and Political Director David Chalian urged staff back in October not to cover the explosive New York Post report that shed light on Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings overseas. 

“Obviously, we’re not going with the New York Post story right now on Hunter Biden,” Chalian is heard saying during a conference call on Oct. 14, the same day the Post published its first Hunter Biden story.

JAKE TAPPER DECLARES HUNTER BIDEN CLAIMS ‘TOO DISGUSTING’ TO REPEAT ON CNN: ‘THE RIGHTWING IS GOING CRAZY’

“The Trump media, you know, moves immediately from — OK, well, never mind — the [Michael Flynn] unmasking was, you know, found to be completely nonsensical to the latest alleged scandal and expects everybody to just follow suit,” Zucker told his staff on Oct. 16. “So, I don’t think that we should be repeating unsubstantiated smears just because the right-wing media suggests that we should.”

Chalian and Zucker’s messages appeared to have later resonated with Tapper, who said Oct. 22 that the allegations against Biden’s son were “too disgusting” to repeat on air and that the “right wing is going crazy.”

However, since the election, Tapper has struck a vastly different tone when it comes to Hunter Biden’s potential business conflicts. Last week, the CNN anchor even asked Joe Biden about it during an interview. 

“When your son came under scrutiny during the campaign, you vowed ‘No one in my family or associated with me will be involved in any foreign operations whatsoever. Period. End of story,’” Tapper began. “Will your brothers, will your son take leave from any business interests, not just foreign but any business interests, that might create any even an appearance of impropriety?”

“My son, my family will not be involved in any business, any enterprise that is in conflict with or appears to be in conflict with an appropriate distance from the presidency and government,” Biden responded. 

Tapper quickly moved on to another topic without any follow-up questions. 

On Twitter, however, Tapper scolded the Biden transition team over Wednesday’s press release, apparently spoiling CNN’s own reporting about the younger Biden’s legal troubles in the process. 

“CNN’s @evanperez was working on the story about the US [sic] Attorney investigation and reached out to Hunter’s legal team for comment Monday. They spoke on Tuesday and said they would get back to him today. They didn’t. Instead the transition team issued a press release,” Tapper tweeted.

He later wrote, “Note to Biden transition team: if your strategy to deal with bad news is to falsely promise a comment to journalists operating in good faith then issue a press release, you will end up getting called late in the process.”

Francis Schaeffer in 1982 on the 700 Club noted:

The liberal newspapers dominated by this humanist view carried reams of material trying to get poor ole Dr. C.Everett Koop, who had been my friend for 30 years, tried to get him not accepted as the Surgeon General of the United States. When he was accepted the Washington Post ran one inch on the 3rd page. That is all.

Dr. Koop is one of the foremost pediatric surgeons in the United States, and among other honors, he was given the highest honor of the French government for his pioneering work in pediatric surgery. He also has experience in the direction of the care of public health. He was shut off not because he didn’t have the qualifications but because he stood for the value of human life and behind it the Christian view.

The newspapers are supposed to make the distinction between news and the editorial page. If they want to be against us on the editorial page that is their privilege and it is our privilege not to buy their newspaper. But when they begin to have a hidden censorship on the news page that is tyranny!!

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com

Francis Schaeffer

File:Francis Schaeffer.jpg

Related posts:

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April 10, 2013 – 7:02 am

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May 8, 2012 – 1:48 am

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The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 4, Elbridge Gerry)

May 7, 2012 – 1:46 am

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The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 3, Samuel Adams)

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The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 2, John Quincy Adams)

May 3, 2012 – 1:42 am

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May 2, 2012 – 1:13 am

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President Obama and the Founding Fathers

May 8, 2013 – 9:20 am

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Francis Schaeffer’s own words concerning the founding fathers and their belief in inalienable rights

December 5, 2012 – 12:38 am

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David Barton: In their words, did the Founding Fathers put their faith in Christ? (Part 4)

May 30, 2012 – 1:35 am

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Were the founding fathers christian?

May 23, 2012 – 7:04 am

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John Quincy Adams a founding father?

June 29, 2011 – 3:58 pm

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June 11, 2013 – 12:34 am

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“Schaeffer Sundays” Francis Schaeffer’s own words concerning the possibility that minorities may be mistreated under 51% rule

June 9, 2013 – 1:21 am

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My February 15, 2021 letter to President Joe Biden, Milton Friedman argued – the resulting unemployment hits African Americans particularly hard. Raising the minimum wage worsens things as employers – confronted by higher labor costs – pare back on working hours offered to their now pricier employees!

Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

February 15,  2021

President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for taking time to have your office try and get a pulse on what is going on out here in the country.

I read this article on January 15, 2021 about your announcement the previous night concerning your first proposal to Congress. Biden’s $1.9 Trillion COVID Relief Package Includes More Stimulus Checks, State Government Bailout, $15 Federal Minimum Wage

I wanted to let you know what I think about the minimum wage increase you have proposed for the whole country and I wanted to quote Milton Friedman who you are familiar with and you made it clear in July that you didn’t care for his views! Let me challenge you to take a closer look at what he had to say!

The winners and losers of a minimum wage hike

Opposing a federal hike isn’t just about political philosophy. It’s about practicality too

27 July 2019 7:25 PM
minimum wage

Millions of Americans could get a pay hike if a Democrat wins the White House. Most of President Trump’s 20-plus challengers have vowed to raise the minimum wage to $15, up from $7.25 today. Front-runner Joe Biden said the move was long overdue. Elizabeth Warren opined that doing nothing threatens the survival of the American family. And Bernie Sanders – who has long championed raising national pay standards – said it’s time companies pay their workers, ‘a living wage.’

The idea isn’t new. Wage hikes have already been approved by lawmakers in several blue states including California, Illinois and Massachusetts (Massachusetts’s minimum wage is set to always be higher than the federal average). Yet while Democrats see raising the pay floor as a moral imperative (New York city mayor and presidential candidate Bill de Blasio said his campaign is boycotting McDonald’s until the fast food chain pays its workers a $15 minimum wage), Republicans worry about government overreach. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said he would oppose any such proposal. House Republican Steve Scalise quipped the $15 figure was, ‘picked out of thin air and is not supported by any reasonable economic analysis.’ His colleague Rep. Kevin McCarthy said the strength and prosperity of American economy should not be jeopardized through more regulation. Put another way, socialism – an effective political bogeyman for the right – isn’t the answer.

Opposition to the minimum wage isn’t just about political philosophy. It’s about practicality too. Conservatives say the minimum wage forces employers to pay workers more than their work is worth. This discourages the hiring of these workers altogether. Milton Friedman famously criticized the minimum wage because – he argued – the resulting unemployment hits African Americans particularly hard. Raising the minimum wage worsens things as employers – confronted by higher labor costs – pare back on working hours offered to their now pricier employees.

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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

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

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Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

OPEN LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA ON HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY “A PROMISED LAND” Part 86 And when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops announced that it couldn’t support the bill (convinced that the bill’s language prohibiting the use of federal subsidies for abortion services wasn’t explicit enough), an unlikely ally arrived in the form of Sister Carol Keehan, a soft-spoken, perpetually cheerful nun who headed up the nation’s Catholic hospitals

February 15, 2021

Office of Barack and Michelle Obama
P.O. Box 91000
Washington, DC 20066

Dear President Obama,

I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters. 

I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it. 

Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:

And when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops announced that it couldn’t support the bill (convinced that the bill’s language prohibiting the use of federal subsidies for abortion services wasn’t explicit enough), an unlikely ally arrived in the form of Sister Carol Keehan, a soft-spoken, perpetually cheerful nun who headed up the nation’s Catholic hospitals. Not only did the sixty-six-year-old Daughter of Charity break with the bishops by insisting that passage of the bill was vital to fulfilling her organization’s mission of caring for the sick; she inspired the leaders of Catholic women’s orders and organizations representing more than fifty thousand American nuns to sign a public letter endorsing the bill.
     “I love nuns,” I told Phil and Nancy-Ann.

Matthew Clark has rightly noted:

ObamaCare requires every American to purchase health insurance, it requires every state to establish health insurance exchanges, and it dramatically expands Medicaid. Each of these – private health insurances programs, exchanges, and Medicaid – can, and in some case are required to, provide coverage for abortion. The result is hundreds of millions of dollars being funneled to the abortion industry every year and the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.

Francis Schaeffer

On Courage, Existential Philosophy, and the Audacity of Truth

Written by Jeremy Livermore on 14 February 2009. Posted in Blogs – Jeremy Livermore

“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” – Thomas Paine, The Crisis

What the deist Thomas Paine wrote better describes the measure of Biblical courage– the ability to advance what one reasonably knows is true when doubt weighs heavy and there is seemingly only hopelessness to embrace. To have this courage is essential to a mature Christian faith. It takes courage-to-be a Christian thinker while the world moves in and out of philosophical belief systems. Courage is necessary to face the onslaught of non-Christian worldviews and philosophies that pop-up again and again in everyday conversations. Moreover, because philosophy changes culture like nothing else can, I believe that the courage-to-be Christian in spite of the philosophical pluralism that abounds today is necessary for cultural change.

Just realizing that we live in a post-modern Western world is too shallow of an analyses. The truth is that there is a plethora of worldviews from strong philosophical systems of ages ago still to grapple with in the public square today. That is, Obama is half-black and president. But this does not mean we are in a post-racial world where racism is triumphed because a half-black man is the highest public office. No racism still abounds today. Likewise, Western societies are still negotiating with existential anxiety, lostness, and dread. We may not be living in such a post-existential world just yet. Among the many philosophical systems that abound today, it seems that there is a lurking existentialism that persists, virtually shadowed by other worldviews. Taken down to the individual level, the existential worldview for a non-believer seems to be the crux of the matter for a person to live for Jesus. After much truth is conveyed in an appropriate apologetic fashion, he/she typically contends “Even if Jesus is not a fairytale, what will he do for me? I already have sufficient reasons for my existence in this world!”

Additionally, one of the ultimate tasks of apologetics is to help remove the intellectual barriers and road blocks that a person has which keeps them from coming face to face with Jesus. At the heart of apologetics is Jesus. Once the struggles of doubt, competing worldviews, and falsities are removed, the soul has nowhere to hide. Light encounters darkness. A decision must be made. Apologetical truth and diplomacy can do nothing efficient at this point because this is where the pure and unadulterated gospel (good news) is timely and poignant. This is the point of conversion or rejection. The soul needs at this moment courage to face the truth of his existential lostness. It is at this moment a person can introspectively turn towards Jesus for healing & the satisfying meaning for his existence or continue to subjectively search for his existential meaning elsewhere.

This persistent existential search is comfortable for the rejecting soul and makes sense when one considers the humanistic backdrop of mankind’s history without God. People from the tower of Babel till now subjectively and objectively acknowledge that life apart from an ultimate higher purpose tends towards abstraction and hedonism. So where does that lead one to? – anxiety, despair, loneliness, dread, fear, and hopelessness. So man must have an alternate meaning to live for, a reason for being that is Godless but necessarily courageous. So man tends to get creative and build. Societies, infrastructure, and development begin. Man is in control of his own fate. Man creates meaning for his being.

About the middle of the last century, the existentialist movement of Western philosophy was flourishing. Thinkers such as Nietzsche, Jon Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and others courageously led the dreadful charge into the realms of death, nothingness, and absurdity. Man’s existence was wrought with tragedy, purposelessness, and hopelessness because man is alone in the universe and there is nothing else like him in it. But out of this nothingness and lostness, man creates something and goes somewhere. Existential hope emerges. There can be courage to live another day. Perhaps, in another blog more existentialist points of view can be developed.

While some of this train of thought eventually morphed and declined away into other philosophical genres during the latter part of the century, much remains at the heart of our current cultural milieu. Now, interestingly, the writings of Paul Tillich, a notable theologian during the 1950’s who responded to the governing voices of humanist existential thinkers, influenced President Obama. Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, is undergirded by the courage-to-be that Tillich resolutely declares is necessary for hopelessness. Hope without courage is unsavory and useless.

But more importantly, and I think Obama knows this, hope without truth is dangerous. Although it can lead to powerful optimism, when tried repeatedly, it will fatigue. Hope needs substance beyond the subject – a transcendent reality in which hope is grounded.

For the soul who rejects Jesus after truths are provided, it is clear that truth is more audacious than Obama’s audacious hope. In response to this existential rejection, Francis Schaeffer contended that “Man cannot make his own universe and then live in it.” There is a house bigger and better than the fort in the backyard. The audacious truth is: a habited un-lonely mansion awaits us post-death.

Overall, in terms of academic philosophy, existentialism has been tried and found wanting. Most of academia does not interact with it. But how existentialism was so and is still so courageously embraced (sometimes unknowingly) by many average persons and great thinkers alike fascinates me. And this is the point – even secular thinkers displayed great courage to think well and advance their humanist thought, even if that thought has to do with hope in spite of nothingness and creating one’s own existential meaning in the universe.

Unfortunately, Christian courage-to-be and think cogently about Christianity is what I find sadly missing from most Western Christians. As so many Christian young people lose their faith due to questions that seem to have no answers, I stagger in disbelief and shake my head in frustration.

Moreover, the pervasive decline in general intellectualism by many adult believers is just as surprising. Christians struggle to have any courage-to-be smart in a world pluralized with strange existentialist meanings & worldviews. This is a heartbreaking reality of our present church. Why do most Christians not even know what apologetics is? And where is the Christian courage to advance our hope? For the most part, courage just is appallingly lacking in many Christians. Courage to share one’s faith with a non-believer, courage to face one’s family of origin issues with a professional counselor, or courage to learn some apologetic type truth and exercise those brain muscles is at best dormant in many believers.

But the Bible is full of heroes who lived lives with courage. There were many heroes like Moses, David, Gideon, Daniel, Nehemiah, & Paul who experienced and exhibited the power and the boldness of the Holy Spirit. But more importantly, they were not just action heroes, they were people of fortitude and being. They were heroes “who, contrary to hope, in hope believed.” (Romans 4:18) These heroes had what Paul Tillich called the “courage-to-be.” This is a type of courage that is rooted in a reasoned filled faith which allowed them to look into the face of the anxiety and despair to find God’s purpose. It came from “being” in-spite of “non-being” –living in spite of death. The courage I am advocating is that which attacks on offense in spite of life’s failures and fears.

I’m reminded of playing quarterback in high school. Because my team was small in numbers, I had to play both offense and defense. Also, because my school had a small student body, in both numbers and size, my offensive line could only amount to an average 5’-5” tall 200 lb each. So needless to say, due to the onslaught of the defense, I scrambled and was sacked often. It forced me to learn the hard way how to have poise in the pocket and see down field to complete a pass when several hungry linebackers wanted to eat a quarterback sandwich. This is the kind of courage-to-be that Tillich is talking about. It’s the ability to look the world of despair straight in the eye and in spite of it, still be.

When thinking about the dread, despair, and loneliness that Sarte, Camus, and others wrote of, the competitiveness in me is fired up. If they can find a way to achieve meaning and hope, we ought to be able to do it and do it better. It is the Christian who has a better hope in the midst of hopelessness and has a better courage in the midst of fear, dread, and anxiety. “Where O death where is your victory?” Where O death where is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55 & Hosea 13:14)

The striking, blinding, and deafening hope of a Christian is that Jesus is the hero of existentialism. He accounted for the anxiety, fear, and despair of the abyss. “He is not a refuge from reality, but a way into its depths.” (Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child) “Death has been swallowed up in Victory?” (1 Cor 15:54) Jesus did as it was prophesied, “He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.” (Isaiah 25:8) Deep in the heart of man’s lostness and loneliness, Jesus appears.

The courage we need to face the demands of our intellectual drought & the dread of our own existential journey is not elated passion or desperate clinging to Jesus during a trial or tribulation. It’s not the highs that come from an intense worship song or a spiritual retreat. This courage is the existential aliveness, awakening, and awareness of the present risenness of Jesus. Courage that is grounded in His presence and His rock solid systematic theological belief system of truths continually built – plateau over plateau by the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit.

Moreover, in terms of our need for rediscovering Christian intellectualism, it is not dull or passive. The insightful Brennan Manning states that “In this decade of much empty religious talk and proliferating Bible studies, idle intellectual curiosity, and pretensions of importance, intelligence without courage is bankrupt. The truth of faith has little value when it is not also the life of the heart.” This truth really needs a courageous heart. This is the intelligence that pursues truth for one’s own meaning sake, which is a worthy task, as Jesus says, “The truth shall set you free.”

Lastly, Christians must be thinkers who stand firm with courage emerging from the inside out. Francis Schaeffer further responded to this cultural drama saying “If it is true that evil is evil, that God hates it to the point of the cross and that there is a moral law fixed in what God is in Himself, then Christians should be the first into the field against what is wrong – including man’s inhumanity to man.” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:13 “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong.” These are strong words, but we can do it Paul, maybe one day as you did, when you literally did face death for your beliefs. We can have the courage to “fight the good fight” and “contend for the faith” even in spite of fear, anxiety, and despair.

By remaining true to Truth and advancing with such courage, the better Hope will last unto death.

____________________

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 everettehatcher@gmail.com

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April 10, 2013 – 7:02 am

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May 8, 2012 – 1:48 am

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The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 4, Elbridge Gerry)

May 7, 2012 – 1:46 am

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The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 3, Samuel Adams)

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May 3, 2012 – 1:42 am

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May 2, 2012 – 1:13 am

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President Obama and the Founding Fathers

May 8, 2013 – 9:20 am

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Francis Schaeffer’s own words concerning the founding fathers and their belief in inalienable rights

December 5, 2012 – 12:38 am

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Were the founding fathers christian?

May 23, 2012 – 7:04 am

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John Quincy Adams a founding father?

June 29, 2011 – 3:58 pm

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July 6, 2013 – 1:26 am

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June 11, 2013 – 12:34 am

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June 9, 2013 – 1:21 am

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Dan Mitchell article The Case Against Socialism, Part II

The Case Against Socialism, Part II

Two years ago, I explained that socialism is an economic failure, regardless of how it is defined.

In today’s follow-up column, let’s start with an excellent video from John Stossel.

Before addressing the three myths mentioned in the video, it’s worth noting that there’s a technical definition of socialism based on policies such as government ownershipcentral planning, and price controls, and a casual definition of socialism based on policies such as punitive tax rateswelfare state, and intervention.

I don’t like any of those policies, but they are not identical.

That’s why I came up with this flowchart to help illustrate the different strains of leftism (just as, on the other side of the spectrum, Trumpism is not the same as Reaganism is not the same as libertarianism).

Now that we’ve covered definitions, let’s dig into Stossel’s video. He makes three main points.

  1. Socialist policies don’t work any better if imposed by governments that are democratically elected. Simply stated, big government doesn’t magically have good consequences simply because a politician received 51 percent of the vote in an election.
  2. Scandinavian nations are not socialist. I’ve addressed this issue several times and noted that countries such as Sweden and Denmark have costly welfare states, but they are based on private property and rely on private markets to allocate resources.
  3. Socialism has a lot in common with fascism. Stossel could have pointed out that Hitler was the head of the National Socialist Workers Party, but he focused on the less inflammatory argument that socialism and fascism both rely on government control of the economy.

By the way, Stossel also narrated an earlier video on this same topic that addressed two other topics.

First, he countered the argument that we can’t learn anything from the failure of nations such as the Soviet Union and Cubabecause they did not have not “real socialism.”My two cents on that topic is to challenge socialists (or anyone else on the left) to answer this question.

Second, he addressed the specific argument that Venezuela can’t teach us anything because its collapse has nothing to do with socialism. The New York Times may want people to thinkVenezuela’s failure is due to factors such as low oil prices, but the real reason is that economic liberty has been extinguished.

The bottom line is that socialism doesn’t work. Regardless of how it’s defined, it’s both immoral and a recipe for economic decline.

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Socialism Humor

As I wrote last November, the one good thing about socialism is the endless opportunities it creates for satire.

Indeed, I have an entire collection of socialism humor (along with jabs at communism, its authoritarian cousin).

For what it’s worth, I think the meme should have targeted Bernie Sanders (a true believer) rather than Joe Biden (a run-of-the-mill careerist politician).

Speaking of Sanders, he and AOC have a starring role in this joke.

Sticking with that theme, the Babylon Bee satirically explainsthat our socialist friends are incapable of learning from real-world experience. And not just in the field of economics.

Local socialist man Brandon Paul was doing some gardening in his front yard this morning when he had a really good idea: to step on a rake.He’d previously stepped on 79 other rakes, each time resulting in the gardening implement smacking him in the face. But those times weren’t “real stepping on a rake,” he insisted. …Paul stepped on the rake, and sure enough, the handle came flying up and conked him on the face. …At publishing time, Paul had decided he would try democratic stepping on a rake, where his friends all vote on whether he steps on the rake, and then he steps on it and smacks his face.

Ouch, figuratively and literally.

Socialist nations are famous for empty shelves in supermarkets. As this next meme illustrates, they also have empty bookshelves.

Some of my left-leaning readers are probably saying, “Wait, what about Denmark?” And my response is, “Well, what about it?”

As per my tradition, I’ve saved my favorite example for the conclusion.

What makes this final meme both amusing and unfortunate is that it does capture the inherent problem in systems where the link between effort and reward is weakened or broken.

Virginia Democratic Congresswoman: ‘Don’t Say Socialism Ever Again’

By JIM GERAGHTYNovember 5, 2020 3:56 PM

Washington Post congressional reporter Erica Werner is reporting, more or less live on Twitter, about a conference call among House Democrats discussing why the 2020 elections did not go anywhere near as well as they expected. Apparently Virginia congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, who is narrowly ahead in her race, is quite angry with the more outspoken members of the progressive wing of her party:

Spanberger on the Dem caucus call: We lost races we shouldn’t have lost.
Defund police almost cost me my race bc of an attack ad.
Don’t say socialism ever again.
Need to get back to basics.
(Is yelling.)

It is rather refreshing to hear a congressional Democrat vehemently opposed to Democratic candidates touting socialism, even if it is just for purposes of campaigning. Maybe in the near future, we can see elected Democrats proclaiming, “America will never be a socialist country.”

This might make it tougher for Republicans to win races against Democrats, but we’re all better off if enthusiasm for socialism returns to the graveyard of political ideas.

LAWNEWS

Anti-Capitalist Rioters Smash Windows of 10 Businesses During Violent Portland March

Jake Dima @dima_jake / November 02, 2020 / 1 Comment

Around 150 violent demonstrators participated in a march called “Capitalism is Scary” in Portland, Oregon, Saturday night. Pictured: Police detain passengers in a mutual aid van during an Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage protest Oct. 11, 2020, in Portland. Protesters tore down statues of two U.S. presidents and broke windows of downtown businesses before police intervened. (Photo: Nathan Howard/ Stringer/Getty Images)

Violent demonstrators smashed windows and police declared a riot during an anti-capitalist march in Portland Saturday night.

Around 150 violent demonstrators participated in a march called “Capitalism is Scary,” according to The Oregoniandailycallerlogo

Rioters destroyed the windows of 10 separate businesses, including multiple phone stores, a coffee shop, a computer storefront, a hotel, a bank, a pair of realty offices, and a restaurant with patrons inside, a report from the Portland Police Bureau revealed.

Individuals donning black clothing were seen on video attempting to destroy a local business’ storefront, as the sound of glass shattering was audible, according to footage obtained by the local outlet.

Law enforcement declared the march a riot and demanded members of the group vacate the area or be exposed to non-lethal munitions, the Portland Police Bureau wrote.

“This is the Portland Police Bureau,” officers announced via a loudspeaker, according to the department’s report. “To those marching on NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd: This has been declared a riot. Members of this group have been observed damaging multiple businesses along NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.”

“All persons must immediately leave the area. Failure to adhere to this order may subject you to arrest, citation, or crowd control agents, including, but not limited to, tear gas and/or impact weapons. Disperse immediately.”

Cops quelled the crowd around 8:30 p.m. and no arrests were made, according to the release. Authorities are investigating the vandalism and future apprehensions are possible, the department concluded.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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Philadelphia Riots Are Another Case of Street Violence Used to Advance Radical Political Agendas

James Carafano @JJCarafano / October 28, 2020 / 4 Comments

Philadelphia Riots

In Kenosha, Portland, Seattle, and Chicago, city officials have tolerated criminal activity performed by mobs for politically motivated reasons. Philadelphia appears to be the next hotspot for mob violence to go unchecked. Pictured: A barricade is set on fire during a night of looting and violence in Philadelphia on Oct. 27. (Photo: Gabriella Audi/AFP/Getty Images)

COMMENTARY BY

James Carafano@JJCarafano

James Jay Carafano, a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, is The Heritage Foundation’s vice president for foreign and defense policy studies, E. W. Richardson fellow, and director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies. Read his research.

Like the replay of a bad movie, a law enforcement incident in Philadelphia triggered an excuse for violence and looting. It remains to be seen whether the City of Brotherly Love will become the next “Kenosha,” where city officials moved quickly to restore order and seek state and federal support—though sadly after 48 hours of opportunistic looting, violence, and destruction devastated the city.

Or perhaps Philadelphia will be the next PortlandSeattle, or Chicago, where systemic attacks seem to be a daily occurrence.

Police in Philadelphia are fully capable of restoring peace. The open question is whether the mayor and Larry Krasner, the former defense attorney-turned elected rogue prosecutor, will do their job and hold people accountable for their crimes.

When local, state, and federal governments work together, act quickly, and demonstrate no tolerance for organized violence to advance radical agendas, communities are kept safe and equal protection under the law is afforded for all citizens.

The left is actively working to undermine the integrity of our elections. Read the plan to stop them now. Learn more now >>

On the other hand, when local officials, the media, and politicians ignore, excuse, normalize, and enable violence, everyday Americans pay the price.

There is a plague sweeping this country that many don’t want to talk about: The deliberate use of street violence to advance radical political agendas, often under a smoke screen of campaigning for civil liberties. The evidence of organized criminal activity at the root of the outbreaks in American cities is mounting.

The list of people enabling this violence sadly includes some public officials, who are principally responsible for ensuring public safety. For example, a growing threat to peaceful communities is “rogue prosecutors,” former criminal defense attorneys recruited and funded by liberal billionaire backers, who—once elected—abuse their office by refusing to prosecute entire categories of crimes.

These rogue prosecutors are usurping the power of the legislature in the process, and ignoring victim’s rights—all to advance their politics.

Baltimore is a perfect  example. Since being sworn into office, under the watch of Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby.

Rogue prosecutors fuel street violence by refusing to prosecute rioters and looters. When confronted with the rising crimes rates, Mosby called the statistics “rhetoric.”

The only way to break the cycle of violence is for local and state officials to work with each other, and if necessary, the federal government. They need to stop enabling the destruction of property and lives on their streets, and start investigating and prosecuting the individuals (and organizations) behind the riots.

It’s time to start shaming and calling out the media, politicians, and advocates who excuse and normalize the violence.

There is a proven action plan for making our streets safe. It is past time for officials to start following this blueprint.

There is no time—zero time to waste. There are already fears of more violence in our streets, regardless of the outcome of the national elections.

In my hometown of Washington, D.C., downtown buildings are already boarding up in anticipation of violence on our streets after the election. If Trump wins, violence. If Biden wins, violence. This makes no sense, and it’s time for it to stop.

It is time for every official and public figure, every political party, in every part of the country to publically reject violence on American streets as a legitimate form of protected speech. Violence is not protected speech, period.

The notion of deliberately destroying the lives and property of our neighbors to advance a radical political agenda is abhorrent. American leaders—of all stripes—should stand up now as one and reject these violent acts. It has gone on for too long, well before the death of George Floyd.

Leaders in Philadelphia and across America must take a principled stand to demand the end to this violence, and they need to do it before the election. In one voice, they should demand: “Leave our streets alone.”

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https://youtu.be/7AhRCyBB_sU

Philadelphia Sees More Unrest After Police Shoot, Kill Walter Wallace Jr. 

Police said about a thousand people were looting businesses northeast of downtown


By

Scott CalvertUpdated Oct. 28, 2020 1:41 am ET

Looters hit businesses in Philadelphia on Tuesday for a second straight night, as authorities struggled to contain civil unrest sparked by a video showing police fatally shooting Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man who was holding a knife.

Police said late Tuesday about a thousand people were looting businesses northeast of downtown, miles from the West Philadelphia neighborhood where the violence was concentrated a night earlier. 

Police urged residents in several parts of the city to stay indoors because those areas were experiencing widespread demonstrations that had turned violent with looting. 

Police had arrested 91 people late Monday and early Tuesday, most in connection with looting of pharmacies, shoe stores and other retail outlets, police said. Thirty officers were injured, mostly from hurled bricks and other projectiles, police said, and a sergeant’s leg was broken when she was hit by a pickup truck.

Like other large U.S. cities, Philadelphia had already been preparing for potential violence around the Nov. 3 election, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at a news conference Tuesday. The city is the most-populous in Pennsylvania, a state viewed as key to deciding the presidential election.

Ms. Outlaw said unrest caused by Monday’s shooting of Mr. Wallace could spill into election-related disturbances. “There may be some bleeding together, just given the timeline, as far as how close we are to Election Day and the days after,” she said.

To help manage tensions, city officials have requested assistance from law-enforcement agencies in surrounding counties and from the state government. The Pennsylvania National Guard said Tuesday it was sending several hundred members to Philadelphia at the request of Gov. Tom Wolf.

“We are exploring all of our options at this time to do everything that we can to ensure that all of our PPD resources are focused on what’s in front of us, whether it’s the actual civil unrest or even again the crime that continues to occur throughout the city,” Ms. Outlaw said.

The White House said the Trump administration would deploy federal resources if requested.

Bystander video that captured the episode in West Philadelphia was distributed on social media. The video shows Mr. Wallace standing on a sidewalk with two police officers pointing their guns at him. At one point a woman appeared to try to stop Mr. Wallace as he crossed the street. Officers fired several times when he re-emerged onto the street from between two parked cars and walked toward them.

A demonstrator shouts at police during a protest near where Walter Wallace, Jr. was killed.
A demonstrator shouts at police during a protest near where Walter Wallace, Jr. was killed.PHOTO: MARK MAKELA/GETTY IMAGES

A police spokesman said officers ordered Mr. Wallace to drop the knife before they fired their guns.

The two officers, whose names haven’t been released, each fired about seven rounds, police Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said. He said he didn’t know how many bullets struck Mr. Wallace. Mr. Vanore said police received a call about a man who was screaming and armed with a knife.

Speaking at a news conference Tuesday evening, Shaka Johnson, a lawyer for the Wallace family, said Mr. Wallace had mental health problems and was taking lithium under a doctor’s care.

“The man was suffering,” he said. “When you come to a scene where somebody is in a mental crisis, [and] the only tool you have to deal with it is a gun, that’s a problem.”

Mr. Johnson said police had been called to the Wallace home twice earlier Monday. Their third appearance, which ended with the deadly confrontation, came after Mr. Wallace’s brother had requested an ambulance, Mr. Johnson said, but the police officers got there first.

Mr. Wallace’s father, Walter Wallace Sr., decried the looting and called for justice for his son. “I can’t even sleep at night,” he said. “Every time I close my eyes, I get flashbacks about multiple shots.” 

Ms. Outlaw, noting that the two officers hadn’t yet been interviewed, didn’t answer a number of questions about the incident, such as whether the officers had any information ahead of time about possible mental-health concerns and whether police had contact with Mr. Wallace before Monday.

“There are many questions that demand answers. Residents have my assurance that those questions will be fully addressed by the investigation,” Ms. Outlaw said. “Everyone involved, including the officers, will forever be impacted by this tragedy.”

District Attorney Larry Krasner said his office will investigate the incident along with the police department. 

Law enforcement and the state of U.S. cities have drawn attention in this year’s presidential election. Speaking in West Salem, Wis., on Tuesday, President Trump said he supported “the heroes of law enforcement.” 

“Last night Philadelphia was torn up by Biden-supporting radicals,” he said. 

Former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, said in a statement Tuesday, “Walter Wallace’s life, like too many others,’ was a Black life that mattered—to his mother, to his family, to his community, to all of us.” At the same time, they said, there was no excuse for attacking police officers and vandalizing businesses.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said that he had spoken with Mr. Wallace’s wife and parents. 

“I have watched the video of this tragic incident, and it presents difficult questions that must be answered,” he said. “We need a speedy and transparent resolution for the sake of Mr. Wallace, his family, the officers and for all Philadelphia.”

John McNesby, president of the local police union, asked the public for patience while the investigation proceeds.

“Our police officers are being vilified this evening for doing their job and keeping the community safe, after being confronted by a man with a knife,” Mr. McNesby said Monday. “We support and defend these officers, as they too are traumatized by being involved in a fatal shooting.”

Demonstrators in Philadelphia confront police during a march Tuesday protesting the death of Walter Wallace.
Demonstrators in Philadelphia confront police during a march Tuesday protesting the death of Walter Wallace.PHOTO: MATT SLOCUM/ASSOCIATED PRESS

As word of the incident spread late Monday, protesters took to the streets. Looters hit businesses around the city, including on 52nd Street, a West Philadelphia commercial corridor that sustained major damage on May 31 and June 1 during protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Ms. Outlaw said the people who gathered to protest the incident weren’t the same people whom police later arrested.

Among the businesses hit were five SunRay pharmacies in West Philadelphia, said owner Marc Tancredi. In June, two SunRay locations were looted, including the one on 52nd Street.

“They broke into the pharmacy and stole the drugs like they did last time,” Mr. Tancredi said Tuesday. “Not as much physical damage to the location.”

Some looting was still occurring at 8 a.m. Tuesday, said Jabari Jones, president of the West Philadelphia Corridor Collaborative, a business association. He said he had examined the damage.

“It’s just another day where unfortunately the situation has boiled to the point where people have resorted to vandalism and looting,” he said.

Mr. Jones described the video of Mr. Wallace’s killing as “sickening” and wondered why officers didn’t take less-lethal steps to resolve the situation.

“I can understand the pent-up anger and rage,” Mr. Jones said. But he said damaging businesses hurts owners and residents who rely on them. “It is a balance of making sure neighborhood stores and places that provide products and services for residents in the community can still be open and provide those things.”

A looted store following protests in Philadelphia.
A looted store following protests in Philadelphia.PHOTO: DAVID DELGADO/REUTERS

Write to Scott Calvert at scott.calvert@wsj.com


Portland protesters topple Lincoln, Roosevelt statues during ‘Day of Rage’

The unrest was reportedly tied to the ‘Day of Rage’ on the eve of Columbus Day

Edmund DeMarche

 By Edmund DeMarche | Fox News

Portland absorbed another night of violent protests Sunday that resulted in the toppling of two statues in the city and reports of numerous buildings with their windows smashed in, including the Oregon Historical Society.

The unrest was reportedly tied to the “Day of Rage” on the eve of Columbus Day.

Andy Ngo, a journalist who has been documenting the unrest in the city, posted images of the destruction on Twitter. The Oregonian reported that protesters managed to bring down statues of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

Ngo posted a video of what he identified as the protesters toppling the statue of Roosevelt, which depicts the former president riding on horseback. The video showed a rope tied around the statue and protesters could be heard cheering when the statue shifted.https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/us/portland-protesters-topple-lincoln-roosevelt-statues-during-day-of-rage.amp

Jussie Smollett

Justin “Jussie” Smollett[1] (/ˈdʒʌsi/ JUSS-ee,born June 21, 1982)[1] is an American actor and singer. He began his career as a child actor in 1987 acting in films including The Mighty Ducks (1992) and Rob Reiner‘s North (1994). In 2015, Smollett portrayed musician Jamal Lyon in the Fox drama series Empire, a role that was hailed as groundbreaking for its positive depiction of a black gay man on television. Smollett has also appeared in Ridley Scott‘s science fiction film Alien: Covenant (2017) as Ricks and in Marshall (2017) as Langston Hughes.

Jussie Smollett
Smollett at the 2016 PaleyFest
BornJustin Smollett
June 21, 1982 (age 38)
Santa Rosa, California, U.S.
OccupationActor singer songwriter
Years active1991–present
RelativesJake Smollett (brother)
Jurnee Smollett-Bell(sister)

Smollett was indicted in February 2019, for disorderly conduct for allegedly staging a fake hate crime assault;[2] the charges were dropped the following month.[3] In February 2020, he was indicted on six counts of making false police reports.[4][5][6]

2019 alleged hate crime hoax

Main article: Jussie Smollett alleged assault

On January 29, 2019, Smollett told police that he was attacked outside his apartment building by two men in ski masks. He reported they called him racialand homophobic slurs and said “this is MAGA country,” a reference to President Donald Trump‘s slogan “Make America Great Again.”[36] He claimed they used their hands, feet, and teeth as weapons in the assault.[37][38] According to a statement released by the Chicago Police Department, the two suspects then “poured an unknown liquid” on Smollett and put a noose around his neck.[39]Smollett said that he fought them off. Smollett was treated at Northwestern Memorial Hospital; not seriously injured, he was released “in good condition” later that morning.[36][40][41] The police were called after 2:30 a.m.;[42] when they arrived around 2:40 am, Smollett had a white rope around his neck.[43] Smollett said that the attack may have been motivated by his criticism of the Trump administration[44] and that he believed that the alleged assault was linked to the threatening letter that was sent to him earlier that month.[35]

On February 20, 2019, Smollett was charged by a grand jury with a class 4 felony for filing a false police report.[45][46][47] The next day, Smollett surrendered himself at the Chicago Police Department’s Central Booking station.[48] Shortly thereafter, CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi stated that Smollett “is under arrest and in the custody of detectives”.[49] On March 26, 2019, all charges filed against Smollett were dropped, with Judge Steven Watkins ordering the public court file sealed.[3][50] First Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph Magats said the office reached a deal with Smollett’s defense team in which prosecutors dropped the charges upon Smollett performing 16 hours of community service[51][52][53] and forfeiting his $10,000 bond.[54][55][56]

On April 12, 2019, the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County against Smollett for the cost of overtime authorities expended investigating the alleged attack, totalling $130,105.15.[57][58][6][59] In November 2019, Smollett filed a counter-suit against the city of Chicago alleging he was the victim of “mass public ridicule and harm” and arguing he should not be made to reimburse the city for the cost of the investigation.[60] On February 11, 2020, after further investigation by a special prosecutor was completed, Smollett was indicted again by a Cook County grand jury on six counts pertaining to making four false police reports.[4][6] On June 12, 2020, a judge struck down Smollett’s claim that his February charge violated the principle of double jeopardy.[61]

Last Update 3 hrs ago

AOC to VP Pence: ‘It’s Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez to you’

Ocasio-Cortez appeared bothered by what she saw as “gender dynamics” at work during the debate, in which Pence was the only male participant

By Dom Calicchio | Fox News

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared to be closely watching the vice presidential debateWednesday night, tweeting several responses to comments by Vice President Mike Pence during his confrontation against Sen. Kamala Harris.

Particularly irking the New York Democrat seemed to be Pence’s reference to her by her widely used nickname “AOC.” 

“For the record @Mike_Pence, it’s Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez to you,” Ocasio-Cortez responded on Twitter.


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez@AOCUS House candidate, NY-14For the record @Mike_Pence, it’s Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez to you.9:29 PM · Oct 7, 2020

Ocasio-Cortez also appeared bothered by what she saw as “gender dynamics” at work during the debate, in which Pence was the only male participant. She accused Pence of demanding answers for the questions he posed to Harris, while trying to avoid directly answering questions put to him by the debate moderator, Susan Page of USA Today.

“Why is it that Mike Pence doesn’t seem to have to answer any of the questions asked of him in this debate?” she wrote.


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez@AOC
US House candidate, NY-14Why is it that Mike Pence doesn’t seem to have to answer any of the questions asked of him in this debate?9:06 PM · Oct 7, 2020

“Pence demanding that Harris answer *his* own personal questions when he won’t even answer the moderator’s is gross, and exemplary of the gender dynamics so many women have to deal with at work,” she added.


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez@AOCUS House candidate, NY-14Pence demanding that Harris answer *his* own personal questions when he won’t even answer the moderator’s is gross, and exemplary of the gender dynamics so many women have to deal with at work.9:18 PM · Oct 7, 2020

But perhaps the most touchy subject for Ocasio-Cortez – a member of so-called “Squad” of far-left lawmakers on Capitol Hill — was climate change.

During the debate, Pence had suggested that the Green New Deal – the signature legislative proposal of Ocasio-Cortez – was a product of “climate alarmists” that would be expensive and cost many Americans their jobs. Estimates have placed the deal’s price tag at more than $90 trillion.

Pence claimed that the Democratic presidential ticket of former Vice President Joe Biden and Harris would fully embrace the plan if elected.

“Now, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would put us back in the Paris climate accord, they’d impose the Green New Deal, which would crush American energy, would increase the energy costs of American families in their homes, and literally crush American jobs,” Pence said.

Ocasio-Cortez responded by claiming the Green New Deal “has been lied about nonstop.”

“It’s a massive job-creation and infrastructure plan to decarbonize & increase quality of work and life,” she wrote.

The vice president also accused Biden and Harris of wanting to steer the U.S. away from traditional energy sources and ban fracking – a process that has helped contribute to the nation’s resurgence in the energy sector but has been a divisive topic among Democrats, who are split between the economic benefits of the process and what many see as its potentially harmful environmental impact.

The debate performance of Vice President Mike Pence drew close scrutiny by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

The debate performance of Vice President Mike Pence drew close scrutiny by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

Harris quickly shot down Pence’s assertion about fracking.

“The American people know Joe Biden will not ban fracking,” Harris said. “That is a fact. That is a fact.”

Ocasio-Cortez – perhaps mindful of accusations that she was less than enthusiastic for the Biden-Harris ticket after preferring progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders for president earlier in the campaign – kept her fracking response limited to a single sentence.


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez@AOC
US House candidate, NY-14Fracking is bad, actually8:43 PM · Oct 7, 2020498.3K92.1K people are Tweeting about this

“Fracking is bad, actually,” she wrote.Dom Calicchio is a Senior Editor at FoxNews.com. Reach him at dom.calicchio@foxnews.com.


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​Amy Coney Barrett was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in November 2017. She serves on the faculty of the Notre Dame Law School, teaching on constitutional law, federal courts, and statutory interpretation, and previously served on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Rhodes College in 1994 and her J.D. from Notre Dame Law School in 1997. Following law school, Barrett clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. She also practiced law with Washington, D.C. law firm Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin.

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—-Related posts:

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part P “Freedom of speech lives on Ark Times Blog” (includes the video ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE) (editorial cartoon)

April 25, 2013 – 6:49 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferProlife | Edit | Comments (0)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part O “Without God in the picture there can not be lasting meaning to our lives” (includes film ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE)

April 23, 2013 – 7:04 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferPresident ObamaProlife | Edit | Comments (0)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part K “On what basis do you say murder is wrong?”Part 1 (includes film ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE)

April 16, 2013 – 5:49 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferPresident ObamaProlife | Edit | Comments (0)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part J “Can atheists find lasting meaning to their lives?” (includes film ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE)

April 15, 2013 – 7:48 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferProlife | Edit | Comments (0)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part H “Are humans special?” includes film ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE) Reagan: ” To diminish the value of one category of human life is to diminish us all”

April 10, 2013 – 6:43 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferProlife | Edit | Comments (0)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part G “How do moral nonabsolutists come up with what is right?” includes the film “ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE”)

April 9, 2013 – 6:36 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferProlife | Edit | Comments (3)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part E “Moral absolutes and abortion” Francis Schaeffer Quotes part 5(includes the film SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS) (editorial cartoon)

April 7, 2013 – 6:25 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferProlife | Edit | Comments (2)

“Sanctity of Life Saturday” Abortion supporters lying in order to further their clause? Window to the Womb (includes video ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE)

April 6, 2013 – 12:01 am

It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas TimesFrancis SchaefferMax BrantleyProlife | Edit | Comments (0)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part D “If you can’t afford a child can you abort?”Francis Schaeffer Quotes part 4 includes the film ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE) (editorial cartoon)

April 5, 2013 – 6:30 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferProlife | Edit | Comments (0)

Netflix Series AFTER LIFE Characters Examined in Light of Book of Ecclesiastes Part 2 Diane Morgan as Kath

Diane Morgan as Kath on AFTER LIFE

After Life on Netflix

In the past I have done over 100 blog posts on the Netflix series AFTER LIFE written by Ricky Gervais and staring Ricky as Tony Johnson. I respect both Ricky and his character Tony for being people who demand evidence and they refuse to accept anything with a blind faith. That is part of the reason I started writing letters to Ricky several years ago with historical evidence from archaeology and ancient cultures on the Bible’s claims. I personally think his latest series AFTER LIFE is his best by far and it does a great job of examining Ricky’s humanist worldview and the natural conclusions that come from this time plus chance view of the world.

Just like Solomon in The Book of Ecclesiastes, Ricky in AFTER LIFE is examining life under the sun, which is life between birth and death without God in the picture. 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. In fact, the phrase under the sun appears 29 times in Ecclesiastes.

Francis Schaefer indicated Ecclesiastes is truly the book of modern man because modern humanist man’s philosophy has brought him to the nihilistic conclusion that all is vanity and meaninglessness. This appears to be the place that the atheist Tony Johnson has landed and many of the characters around Tony have come to pessimistic conclusions about life too, though they have searched for satisfaction and meaning in life by pursuing ladies, luxuries, learning, labor, liquor, and laughter.

Diane Morgan does a great job of playing Tony’s protagonist Kath in AFTER LIFE. Kath is a person who thinks that finding a wealthy husband will be the answer she needs.

In season 2 of AFTER LIFE episode 5 Kath brings a date and she is trying to show how successful and rich that he is: 

Kath: My date, very successful, got a Rolls Royce haven’t you?

Date: Secondhand.
Kath: Still a Rolls Royce. Very successful.

Kath: Still a Rolls Royce

Date: Made a lot of money in scrap.
Kath: Don’t say “scrap.”

I remember watching the replay of the March 25th Twitter Live broadcast by Ricky and he opened it with the song “Jesus take the wheel” sung by Carrie Underwood. Actually one of family friends has written several hit songs for Carrie Underwood. (By the way the music for AFTER LIFE is masterful and I especially appreciate the placing of the songs).

The record business is a lot different today than it was in the 1960’s when the Beatles got started. My wife came to me about about 20 years ago and told me that our friends had a son involved in a struggling rock band in Little Rock and Jill wanted to know if we could give David a TV that we had put in our garage. We gave it to him and then just a few weeks later she told me the whole band was moving to Los Angeles and they had hit it big with a record contract. I had my doubts but several months later we saw the movie DAREDEVIL came out featuring two of the songs by our friend and his group Evanescence.

The rest is history and they sold over 18 million records and our friend David Hodges went on to write for many of the top performers in the record business and those included #1 smash singles: Kelly Clarkson’s“Because of You,” Daughtry’s “What About Now,” Carrie Underwood’s “See You Again” and many others. My personal favorite is A THOUSAND YEARS sung by Christina Perri. 

In October of 2016 David spoke to a meeting I attended in Little Rock. He said the 15 years he lived in Los Angeles had taught him a lot of lessons and the MOST IMPORTANT is the lesson from the BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES that TRUE JOY and HAPPINESS does not come from MONEY and POSSESSIONS.

Solomon was searching for meaning in life in what I call the 6 big L words in the Book of Ecclesiastes. He looked into  learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries,  and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). After searching  in area of luxuries Solomon found  them to be  “vanity and a striving after the wind.”

Ecclesiastes 2:7-11 English Standard Version (ESV)

7I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. 8I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem…10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. 11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained UNDER THE SUN.

“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” Mark 8:36 (Christ’s words)

God put Solomon’s story in Ecclesiastes in the Bible with the sole purpose of telling people that without God in the picture you  will find out the emptiness one feels when possessions are trying to fill the void that God can only fill.

christina perri and david hodges on stage during bmi’s 61st annual pop awards at the beverly wilshire four seasons hotel on may 14 2013 in beverly hills california

Image result for christina perri david hodges

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SEPTEMBER 23, 2013“See You Again” No. 1 party BMI’s Jody Williams presents (l-r) Carrie Underwood, Hillary Lindsey and David Hodges with their commemorative BMI cups, lauding the success of “See You Again.” Hodges, as it was his first No. 1 as a songwriter, also received the traditional BMI black acoustic guitar. (Photo by Rick Diamond)

Image result for carrie underwood david hodges

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Daughtry frontman Chris Daughtry with opening act David Hodges at Pure in Caesars Palace.

Image result for Daughtry david hodges

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Three founding members of Evanescence, Amy Lee, Ben Moody and David Hodges

Kath and Tony spare over Tony’s rejection of the God of the Bible, and I know that Ricky grew up attending church but rejected Christianity and the teachings of the Bible in his youth, but has he taken time to examine the historical claims of the Bible to see if they are accurate?

I remember listening to a 90 minute lecture by Francis Schaeffer on the conclusions the great American archaeologist (William F. Albright) who changed his views over the years because of the archaeological evidence. Below is some of that evidence(You can access some of the evidence that convinced William Ramsey concerning the Book of Luke and Acts here.)

I went and secured a copy of the interview and read it myself. In a 1963 interview with Christianity Today magazine, William F. Albright (1891-1971) stated:

In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew between the forties and eighties of the first century A.D. (very probably sometime between about 50 and 75 A.D.)(CHRISTIANITY TODAY, VII, 359, January 18, 1963, “Toward a More Conservative View,” interview with William F. Albright.)

Related posts:

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part I “Old Testament Bible Prophecy” includes the film TRUTH AND HISTORY and article ” Jane Roe became pro-life”

April 12, 2013 – 5:45 am

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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical ArchaeologyFrancis SchaefferProlife | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur on fulfilled prophecy from the Bible Part 2

August 8, 2013 – 1:28 am

I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian RogersCurrent Events | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur on fulfilled prophecy from the Bible Part 1

August 6, 2013 – 1:24 am

I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian RogersCurrent Events |Tagged Bible Prophecyjohn macarthur | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur: Fulfilled prophecy in the Bible? (Ezekiel 26-28 and the story of Tyre, video clips)

April 5, 2012 – 10:39 am

Prophecy–The Biblical Prophesy About Tyre.mp4 Uploaded by TruthIsLife7 on Dec 5, 2010 A short summary of the prophecy about Tyre and it’s precise fulfillment. Go to this link and watch the whole series for the amazing fulfillment from secular sources. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvt4mDZUefo________________ John MacArthur on the amazing fulfilled prophecy on Tyre and how it was fulfilled […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (1)

John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2)

August 1, 2013 – 12:10 am

John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 1)

July 30, 2013 – 1:32 am

John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 1) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)

Adrian Rogers: “Why I believe the Bible is true”

July 9, 2013 – 8:38 am

Adrian Rogers – How you can be certain the Bible is the word of God Great article by Adrian Rogers. What evidence is there that the Bible is in fact God’s Word? I want to give you five reasons to affirm the Bible is the Word of God. First, I believe the Bible is the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian RogersBiblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (0)

The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy by Jim Wallace

June 24, 2013 – 9:47 am

Is there any evidence the Bible is true? Articles By PleaseConvinceMe Apologetics Radio The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy Jim Wallace A Simple Litmus Test There are many ways to verify the reliability of scripture from both internal evidences of transmission and agreement, to external confirmation through archeology and science. But perhaps the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical ArchaeologyCurrent Events | Edit|Comments (0)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part M “Old Testament prophecy fulfilled?”Part 3(includes film DEATH BY SOMEONE’S CHOICE)

April 19, 2013 – 1:52 am

  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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferProlife | Edit|Comments (0)

Evidence for the Bible

March 27, 2013 – 9:43 pm

Here is some very convincing evidence that points to the view that the Bible is historically accurate. Archaeological and External Evidence for the Bible Archeology consistently confirms the Bible! Archaeology and the Old Testament Ebla tablets—discovered in 1970s in Northern Syria. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | E

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