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President Obama Speaks at the Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride Event

Former President George W. Bush gives a tour of his gallery of Warrior Warrir paintings

https://youtu.be/34mx9lRXobk

President surprises wounded warrior

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April 19, 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. 

There are several issues raised in your book that I would like to discuss with you such as the minimum wage law, the liberal press, the cause of 2007 financial meltdown, and especially your pro-choice (what I call pro-abortion) view which I strongly object to on both religious and scientific grounds, Two of the most impressive things in your book were your dedication to both the National Prayer Breakfast (which spoke at 8 times and your many visits to the sides of wounded warriors!!

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:

ONE AFTERNOON a couple of months after the Af-Pak announcement, I walked alone across the South Lawn—trailed by a military aide carrying the football and my veterans affairs staffer, Matt Flavin—to board the Marine One helicopter and make the brief flight to Maryland for the first of what would be regular visits to Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. On arrival, I was greeted by commanders of the facility, who gave me a quick overview of the number and condition of wounded warriors on-site before leading me through a maze of stairs, elevators, and corridors to the main patients’ ward.
     For the next hour, I proceeded from room to room, sanitizing my hands and donning scrubs and surgical gloves where necessary, stopping in the hallway to get some background on the recovering service member from hospital staffers before knocking softly on the door.
     Though patients at the hospitals came from every branch of the military, many who were there during my first few years in office were members of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps that patrolled the insurgent-dominated areas of Iraq and Afghanistan and had been injured by gunfire or IEDs. Almost all were male and working-class: whites from small rural towns or fading manufacturing hubs, Blacks and Hispanics from cities like Houston or Trenton, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders from California. Usually they had family members sitting with them—mostly parents, grandparents, and siblings, though if the service member was older, there would be a wife and kids too—toddlers squirming in laps, five-year-olds with toy cars, teenagers playing video games. As soon as I entered the room, everyone would shift around, smiling shyly, appearing not quite sure what to do. For me, this was one of the vagaries of the job, the fact that my presence reliably caused a disruption and a bout of nervousness among those I was meeting. I tried always to lighten the mood, doing what I could to put people at ease.
     Unless fully incapacitated, the service members would usually raise their bed upright, sometimes pulling themselves to a seated position by reaching for the sturdy metal handle on the bedpost. Several insisted on hopping out of bed, often balancing on their good leg to salute and shake my hand. I‘d ask them about their hometown and how long they’d been in the service. I’d ask them how they got their injury and how soon they might be starting rehab or be getting fitted for a prosthetic. We often talked sports, and some would ask me to sign a unit flag hung on the wall, and I’d give each service member a commemorative challenge coin. Then we’d all position ourselves around the bed as Pete Souza took pictures with his camera and with their phones, and Matt would give out business cards so they could call him personally at the White House if they needed anything at all.
     How those men inspired me! Their courage and determination, their insistence that they’d be back at it in no time, their general lack of fuss. It made so much of what passes for patriotism—the gaudy rituals at football games, the desultory flag waving at parades, the blather of politicians—seem empty and trite. The patients I met had nothing but praise for the hospital teams responsible for their treatment—the doctors, nurses, and orderlies, most of them service members themselves but some of them civilians, a surprising number of them foreign-born, originally from places like Nigeria, El Salvador, or the Philippines. Indeed, it was heartening to see how well these wounded warriors were cared for, beginning with the seamless, fast-moving chain that allowed a Marine injured in a dusty Afghan village to be medevaced to the closest base, stabilized, then transported to Germany and onward to Bethesda or Walter Reed for state-of-the-art surgery, all in a matter of days.
     Because of that system—a melding of advanced technology, logistical precision, and highly trained and dedicated people, the kind of thing that the U.S. military does better than any other organization on earth—many soldiers who would have died from similar wounds during the Vietnam era were now able to sit with me at their bedside, debating the merits of the Bears versus the Packers. Still, no level of precision or care could erase the brutal, life-changing nature of the injuries these men had suffered. Those who had lost a single leg, especially if the amputation was below the knee, often described themselves as being lucky. Double or even triple amputees were not uncommon, nor were severe cranial trauma, spinal injuries, disfiguring facial wounds, or the loss of eyesight, hearing, or any number of basic bodily functions. The service members I met were adamant that they had no regrets about sacrificing so much for their country and were understandably offended by anyone who viewed them with even a modicum of pity. Taking their cues from their wounded sons, the parents I met were careful to express only the certainty of their child’s recovery, along with their deep wells of pride.
     And yet each time I entered a room, each time I shook a hand, I could not ignore how incredibly young most of these service members were, many of them barely out of high school. I couldn’t help but notice the rims of anguish around the eyes of the parents, who themselves were often younger than me. I wouldn’t forget the barely suppressed anger in the voice of a father I met at one point, as he explained that his handsome son, who lay before us likely paralyzed for life, was celebrating his twenty-first birthday that day, or the vacant expression on the face of a young mother who sat with a baby cheerfully gurgling in her arms, pondering a life with a husband who was probably going to survive but would no longer be capable of conscious thought.
     Later, toward the end of my presidency, The New York Times would run an article about my visits to the military hospitals. In it, a national security official from a previous administration opined that the practice, no matter how well intentioned, was not something a commander in chief should do—that visits with the wounded inevitably clouded a president’s capacity to make clear-eyed, strategic decisions. I was tempted to call that man and explain that I was never more clear-eyed than on the flights back from Walter Reed and Bethesda. Clear about the true costs of war, and who bore those costs. Clear about war’s folly, the sorry tales we humans collectively store in our heads and pass on from generation to generation—abstractions that fan hate and justify cruelty and force even the righteous among us to participate in carnage. Clear that by virtue of my office, I could not avoid responsibility for lives lost or shattered, even if I somehow justified my decisions by what I perceived to be some larger good.
     Looking through the helicopter window at the tidy green landscape below, I thought about Lincoln during the Civil War, his habit of wandering through makeshift infirmaries not so far from where we were flying, talking softly to soldiers who lay on flimsy cots, bereft of antiseptics to stanch infections or drugs to manage pain, the stench of gangrene everywhere, the clattering and wheezing of impending death.
     I wondered how Lincoln had managed it, what prayers he said afterward. He must have known it was a necessary penance. A penance I, too, had to pay.

I—

I really enjoyed this article below about your visits to the soldiers!

Obama’s sacred duty: Visiting the wounded at Walter Reed

Published Nov 29, 2016

BETHESDA, Md. — President Barack Obama stood outside the room, rubbed sanitizer on his hands, set his face into a smile and knocked on the door.

No one answered. He looked at the hospital floor polished to a sheen and knocked again. Still no answer. So Obama turned the knob and gently pushed his way inside.

“Hello? Jeremy, what’s going on?” Maj. Jeremy Haynes remembers the president saying as he came into his room at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center two years ago.

It was the first of several visits the president paid Haynes, an Army officer who was told he would never walk, feel below his waist or have children again after his spine was hit by a Taliban bullet in Afghanistan. The visits, Haynes said, “were truly inspiring to me” and gave him hope for the life ahead of him.

On Tuesday, for his 23rd and probably last time as president, Obama will helicopter to the military hospital to spend another afternoon with the wounded from Afghanistan and Iraq. The visit is likely to unfold much as Haynes and hospital officials described the ones the president paid to him.

Obama will arrive at the hospital in suburban Maryland on Marine One with a minimum of ceremony, having memorized the names of the wounded he will visit from a list he received the night before. At a side entrance to the hospital, a military aide will update him on their conditions. If he visits those still hospitalized, he will climb the stairs to 4 West and 4 Center, known as the soldiers ward. After greeting the doctors and nurses on duty, he will begin his rounds with a knock. If instead he visits the physical therapy center, he will wander one giant room filled with exercise machines and patients learning to live without limbs.

For Obama, who has served as a wartime commander longer than any of his predecessors, meeting with the wounded and their families is among the most sacred duties of his presidency. He rarely talks about his trips to Walter Reed, but his aides say that they have affected him deeply.

David Axelrod, Obama’s longtime political aide, said the president often returned to the White House from Walter Reed, first when it was in Washington and later after it had merged with Bethesda Naval Hospital, in a somber mood. After one such trip, he recalled, Obama described a young woman attending to her newlywed husband, whose body was shattered and head terribly wounded

“‘You want to be upbeat and encouraging,’ I remember him saying,” Axelrod said. “‘But they’re just kids starting out, and I looked at his wife’s face and you could see her struggling with what this would mean for the rest of their lives. It’s really hard.’ “

• • •

In his first two years in office, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan raged and there were many wounded, Obama’s trips to Walter Reed were three- and four-hour slogs during which he donned fresh hospital gowns and gloves outside every fifth room to see patients clinging to life days or weeks after being blown apart. He returned to the White House visibly drained, aides said.

More recently, he has done push-ups and other exercises with newly minted civilians who, instead of struggling to live, are trying to find ways of coping without arms, legs or equilibrium months and years after being wounded.

“The first term, our visits would last for hours because there would be 25, 50, 75 folks that we’d be seeing, going room to room, many with devastating injuries,” Michelle Obama, who has made her own trips to Walter Reed, said recently. “And now, today, just last week he went to visit, and he was there for 30 minutes because there are fewer of our men and women who are being injured in war.”

The afternoon excursions from the White House are in many ways the counterpoint to Barack Obama’s 15 trips offering condolences after mass shootings, when he has openly grieved with families, tears on his face. At Walter Reed, his goal has been to thank and uplift the wounded and their families, whose sacrifices he sees as almost holy and among whom expressions of grief are often unwelcome.

“If you are coming into this room with sorrow or to feel sorry for my wounds, go elsewhere,” read one handwritten sign outside a soldier’s door, now framed and installed on the soldiers ward.

• • •

Reggie Love, a former aide to Obama who accompanied him on nearly all of his trips to military hospitals in the first three years of the administration, said the president was good at reading the rooms he entered. Not everyone wanted an upbeat message.

“Sometimes the people he met didn’t have any questions for him or really anything to say,” Love said. “Sometimes, they just needed a hug.”

Some of the soldiers whom Obama has visited are more grievously wounded than those seen by any modern president, as improved technology has saved people who even five years ago would have died on the battlefield. The shock of repeatedly seeing such devastating injuries can affect someone’s psyche far more than flag-draped coffins, psychologists say.

“Every time I visit Walter Reed, every time I visit Bethesda, I’m reminded of the wages of war,” Obama said at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in 2011.

Robert M. Gates, the former defense secretary, wrote in his memoir Duty that seeing the wounded and attending funerals took such an emotional toll that he had to resign. Critics see another effect. Over the course of his presidency, Obama has become increasingly unwilling to commit troops to wars in places like Libya, Syria and Iraq.

The visits end with Obama’s signing unit flags, books and anything else presented to him, and with a photographer taking group and paired shots. Sometimes families ask to have photos taken with their own cellphones, which Obama hands over to his photographer.

• • •

In June, Obama visited the hospital’s physical therapy room, where amputees learn to walk again. One double-amputee gave Obama a push-up challenge, and Obama promptly shed his suit jacket, dropped to the floor and reeled off more than 20. Still wearing dress shoes, he joined another in jumping onto a 30-inch box.

“I can’t even put into words how impressed I was,” said Lt. Cmdr. John Terry, known as Jae, an amputee whose photo of doing lunges with Obama is among his most treasured possessions. “I will remember that day until I die.”

Not every severely wounded patient at Walter Reed meets the president. Some miss him by chance. A few refuse because they disagree with the president’s politics.

But even some of the president’s critics say his presence ennobled their injuries and made them feel part of a larger plan.

As he buckled his two stumps into prosthetic legs at the hospital one day recently, Edward Klein, known as Flip, a now retired Army major, acknowledged that “I wasn’t a big fan of his politically.”

But, he added: “Meeting the president added a feeling of legitimacy and recognition for what I did.”

Sincerely,

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

Lt. Cmdr. John Terry doing lunges with President Obama at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Commander Terry, who provided the image, said, “I will remember that day until I die.”

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_________

As explained in the video, Jerry is a victim of asset forfeiture, a policy that literally allows bureaucrats to steal from citizens.

I wish I was joking or exaggerating.

Moreover, this isn’t something that only happens in very rare instances. It’s so pervasive that in some years, bureaucrats actually steal more from people than burglars!

Indeed, the law actually gives cops an incentive to steal. That’s why it’s known as “policing for profit.”

The silver lining to this dark cloud is that America’s best Supreme Court Justice wants to end this awful scam.

P.S. I’m tempted to create a Victims of Thuggery Hall of Fame. If so, Jerry Johnson will be a member along with these other people who have been abused by government.

• Andy Johnson
• Anthony Smelley
• The Hammond family
• Charlie Engle
• Tammy Cooper
• Nancy Black
• Russ Caswell
• Jacques Wajsfelner
• Jeff Councelller
• Eric Garner
• Martha Boneta
• Corey Statham
• James Slatic
• Carole Hinders
• Salvatore Culosi
• James Lieto
• the Sierra Pacific Company
• The Meitev family
• Dimitrios Patlias

P.P.S. It’s worth noting the first two people in charge of the federal government’s asset forfeiture program have since announced their opposition to this despicable practice.

P.P.P.S. Just like intrusive and ineffective money-laundering laws, wretched asset forfeiture laws are largely the result of the foolish War on Drugs. One bad policy generates another bad policy. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This Kennedy descendant insists in her New York Times Book Review that “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” doesn’t offer “any actual instructions” for explosions. Pictured: The New York Times building seen on June 30, 2020, in New York City. (Photo: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

1. RECALLING FRANCIS SCHAEFFER’S CHRISTIAN ENVIRONMENTALISM

   by John Murdock2 . 22 . 13

A crowd of about 35,000 had gathered near the Washington Monument during a cold blustery Presidents Day weekend in the midst of an unusually mild winter to prod the Obama administration to take actions against climate change. The largest climate action rally in American history had been scheduled for noon on a Sunday, not exactly a time chosen with regular church-goers in mind”though, undoubtedly, for some present the environmental cause would be the closest thing to a religion in their lives.

I carried a sign that declared “Jesus is Pro-Planet” in 175-point type. I have no hesitation about the truth of the statement. Paul makes it clear in Colossians 1 that, through Christ, God is indeed reconciling to himself “all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven,” and that this is good news for “every creature under heaven.”

As C.S. Lewis noted in Mere Christianity , the true cosmic nature of Christ’s atonement is difficult for our inwardly focused minds to fathom but “there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in [to Christ], a great many other things in Nature will begin to come right.”

Francis Schaeffer made a similar point in his important Pollution and the Death of Man , a neglected manifesto for Evangelical environmentalism:

The blood of the Lamb will redeem man and nature together . . . . But Christians who believe the Bible are not simply called to say that “one day” there will be healing, but that by God’s grace, upon the basis of the work of Christ, substantial healing can be a reality here and now.

In 1970, Schaeffer spoke against the “greed and haste” that was destroying creation and called for the Church to be a “pilot plant” demonstrating the healing of man and nature. The failure to do so would, to Schaeffer, be both disobedient and bring the loss of a great evangelistic opportunity, with pantheism filling the vacuum as long as the Church practiced this “sub-Christianity.”

While Evangelical leaders enthusiastically embraced Schaeffer’s push to engage on abortion and other cultural issues in the 1980s, his words and actions about the darkness of environmental degradation and the beauty of nature have largely been forgotten. He agreed with the 1960s countercultural critique of a “plastic culture” with its overreliance on “the machine” of technology and a diminished concept of nature.

The counterculture’s diagnosis was largely correct , Schaeffer thought, but the favored prescription”implicit or explicit pantheism”reduced man to “no more than grass,” after which he feared that “impersonal technology will reign even more securely.”

Also problematic was the popular but “perverted” form of Christianity that embraced a type of Platonic dualism, focused exclusively on the soul and getting it to the higher state of Heaven. For such Christians, the realm of nature might, at best, serve as an apologetic tool, but it had no real intrinsic value to them or their version of God, despite his having proclaimed it “good” from the start.

Pollution and the Death of Man illustrates this point with the true story of a Christian institution run with its eyes solely on the sky. This austere school campus sits across a large ravine from what, despite its lushness, was derisively labeled as just a “hippie community” by the Christians. Schaeffer, after speaking at the school, visited the neighbors. He spoke with their leadership about ecological issues, saw the lovely fields, trees, gardens and even the site of their communal grape stomps.

Schaeffer realized that the Christians, with their unbiblical and cavalier attitude towards nature, were offering little to draw the sincere but lost pagans toward a true vision of creation and redemption. “When I stood on Christian ground and looked at the Bohemian people’s place,” wrote Schaeffer, “it was beautiful. Then I stood on pagan ground and looked at the Christian community and saw ugliness.” Schaeffer took it as a sad compliment when his hippie host said he was the first to come from “across the ravine” in such a manner.

Indeed, Schaeffer (who loved to hike the Alps and did not own a car after 1948) believed that only a return to orthodox Christianity could effectively bridge this chasm. He countered Platonic Christianity by emphasizing that all of creation, from the human body on down to a tree or a stone, has inherent value stemming from its association with the Creator. “What God has made, I, who am also a creature, must not despise.”

Schaeffer insisted that man is finite, as separated from the infinite God, as are our kin, the animals and the grass. But, lest we slide into pantheism, he also emphasized the separation from nature brought about by our special creation in the image of God. Here, the rest of creation lies below us, and in this regard we are much more than grass.

Maintaining these two truths in proper tension allows us to engage the environment with an appropriate respect for its order and worth. It is not a plaything, designed solely for our hedonistic enjoyment. We may use it, yes, but we should exercise dominion without utter destruction, always avoid disdain for what God has made, and delights in it independent of its utility to us. In practice, the Christian community should be a people that have learned “to say ‘Stop!’” and “refuse men the right to ravish our land, just as we refuse them the right to ravish our women.”

As I approached the D.C. throng calling for a “Stop!” of its own, I felt a bit as though I was taking the name of Jesus across a green ravine similar to the one Schaeffer walked. Looking over the crowd, I was reminded, though, that God has not been without his witnesses in this realm. The ringleader of the event, 350.org founder Bill McKibben, has regularly referenced his Methodist faith, and multiple Earth Flags”first created in 1969 by faithful believers John and Anna McConnell (who, incidentally, met with a little help from Richard John Neuhaus)”were taut in the stiff breeze.

Nevertheless, forty-three years after Schaeffer wrote his little treatise, plenty of pantheistic Mother Earth spirituality was on display as well as the secular humanism that Schaeffer famously warned against elsewhere. Unfortunately, the Evangelical Church did not step into the breach and much of its leadership instead now treats the small creation care movement as a theological leper, unclean because it engages with a green movement viewed as beyond redemption.

Yet the name of Jesus was surprisingly well received on the National Mall. I saw not one glare or frown; instead dozens of people made positive comments and requested photographs. A self-described agnostic hawking The Socialist Worker newspaper engaged with me about mankind’s relationship to God and closed by saying of Jesus with a smile, “Well, if he got you out here, he can’t be all bad.”

A small group of banner-wielding Evangelical college students, who allowed me to join them despite my relatively advanced years, also drew thanks from fellow believers in the crowd and inquiries from the curious. One secular liberal couple stood with us for quite a while asking questions about what it meant to be an Evangelical, honestly discussing their own negative associations of the term with George W. Bush and SUVs. They eventually were comfortable enough”in deliciously appropriate clichéd fashion” to share their granola bars, even with an openly pro-life Bush voter like me.

Plenty of work remains to be done, both to bandage God’s wounded creation and reach his most precious creatures. “ We’ve got the whole world in our hands,” a gaggle of green-clad marchers sang to a familiar Sunday School tune. “I think they’ve got the lyrics wrong,” I remarked with a wink to the students. We set about to sing the song correctly.

John Murdock works as a natural resources attorney in Washington, D.C., and is a member of The Falls Church Anglican in northern Virginia. He has written on environmental matters for numerous outlets including The New Atlantis.

RESOURCES

“ Earth Day’s Forgotten Founder ,” Flourish

“ Crowd marches to voice opposition to Keystone pipeline ,” Washington Post

“ Is Good Friday Good for the Earth? ,” Patheos

“ The Climate of Climate Change ,” The New Atlantis

“ The Genesis of Pixar ,” The New Atlantis

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Prince Philip | Funniest Moments And Greatest Gaffes Caught On Camera

Faith – The Crown (Netflix S3:E7

The Crown – Philip meets the astronauts

In the article below you will read how Prince Philip came up empty when he asked the astronauts the following question:

“There comes a time in life when one starts to evaluate what one’s accomplished, because of the positions I’ve ended up in, who I’ve become (who I married!) I haven’t been able to become the adventurer I wanted to…I want to know what your thoughts were…out there…’’

Their lame answers disappoint Philip. The astronauts are more interested and animated when asking him about how it feels to live in Buckingham Palace. He states, 

“…they delivered as astronauts but failed as human beings.”

The astronauts failed to fill Philip’s desire for answers to the bigger spiritual and philosophical questions that, at times, ‘everyman’ struggles with. To find something to fill the ‘God-shaped hole,’ we all are created with as Aquinas says. We try to fill that hole with experiences, stuff, people, and relationships…everything but what it was designed to be filled with God.

 “The Rolling Stones.” Remember them. They wrote this song “I can’t get no satisfaction.” And you know what they say after that phrase? “And I try and I try and I try.” I am not sure how deep most of their lyrics are, but they voice the cry of many people. “I can’t get no satisfaction and I try and I am trying and I am trying.”

Why do so many people throughout the world believe in God and an afterlife? Ecclesiastes 3:11 “God has planted eternity in the heart of men…” (Living Bible) Why is it that we try to find something to fill the ‘God-shaped hole?

Romans chapter 1:19-20:

19For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them.

20For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification],(B)

The Bible teaches we all know God exists and we will all survive beyond the grave! (This can even be seen in the Netflix series AFTER LIFE)

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A still from ‘After Life’ that captures the vibe of the Tambury Gazette. (Twitter)

After Life on Netflix stars Ricky Gervais as a bereaved husband (Image: Netflix)

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Psychiatrist played by Paul Kaye seen below.

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Ricky Gervais plays bereaved husband Tony Johnson in AFTER LIFE 

Even Tony seems to feel this in episode 4 of the first season of AFTER LIFE (which is currently on NETFLIX) when Tony talks about being with his wife in the future.

Matt: Tony that doesn’t even make sense. You are a rational man. You don’t even believe in an afterlife. 

Tony: I know she is nowhere. Alright. But get this through your head. I would rather be no where with her then somewhere without her. 

(Below the journalism department of The Tambury Gazette on AFTER LIFE )

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(PICTURED BELOW in AFTER LIFE Tony Johnson talks regularly with Anne on the bench at the graveyard next to their spouse head-stones)

 No wonder Bertrand Russell wrote in his autobiography, “It is odd, isn’t it? I feel passionately for this world and many things and people in it, and yet…what is it all? There must be something more important, one feels, though I don’t believe there is. I am haunted. Some ghosts, for some extra mundane regions, seem always trying to tell me something that I am to repeat to the world, but I cannot understand that message.”

Dave Hope and Kerry Livgren of the rock group KANSAS performed their song DUST IN THE WIND in 1978 when it made it into the top 10 and it basically put forth what King Solomon said in ECCLESIASTES that without God in the picture we are all DUST IN THE WIND in this life UNDER THE SUN, but in the chapter Solomon looks above the sun and finds the answer that had eluded Kerry Livgren and Prince Philip so long!!!

Philip returns to the men’s group at St. George’s Center again. He is more thoughtful and humble as he describes himself to the others, 

Drip, doubt, disaffection, unease, discomfort – a jealous fascination with the achievements of the astronauts. My mother died recently. She saw something was amiss…a wonderful word, ‘amiss’, something is missing…faith.  She saw it. ‘How’s your faith?’ she asked me. I’m here to admit to you that I’ve lost it. And without it, what is there? Loneliness, emptiness, anticlimax…going all the way to the moon to find nothing but haunting desolation. That is what faithlessness is, as opposed to finding wonder and exhilaration. The solution to our problems is not in science but bravery.

By the way, the final chapter of Ecclesiastes finishes with Solomon emphasizing that serving God is the only proper response of man. Solomon looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture in the final chapter of the book in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14:

13 Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.

 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil

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 withSolomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Three thousand years ago, Solomon took a look at life “under the sun” in his book of Ecclesiastes. Christian scholar Ravi Zacharias has noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term ‘under the sun.’ What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system, and you are left with only this world of time plus chance plus matter.”

Let me show you some inescapable conclusions if you choose to live without God in the picture. Solomon came to these same conclusions when he looked at life “under the sun.”

1. Death is the great equalizer (Eccl 3:20, “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.”)
2. Chance and time have determined the past, and they will determine the future.  (Ecclesiastes 9:11-13)
3. Power reigns in this life, and the scales are not balanced(Eccl 4:1)
4. 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.

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I have over 2 million views on my blog and one of the top posts that people have come to my blog to read is entitled WHAT IS THE BASIC MESSAGE OF ECCLESIASTES?

Confessions of an Anglophile- Impressions from The Crown: A Search for Relevance

March 1, 2020 Meljun Picardal

by Cathi Palmer

I ask your patience in advance as the basis of this piece is founded in my love for all things British. I search for all things Austen, Dickens, and smacking of royalty…don’t even get me going on Downton Abbey(2010-2016)! I happened upon The Crown (2016-present), the PBS miniseries, now on Netflix, which follows the appointment, coronation, and reign of Elizabeth II, the current monarch of Britain.

As a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, I don’t necessarily watch TV with the thought of themes of redemption, good vs. evil, or any other themes. I’m usually looking for some form of escapism from the mundane or a little entertainment.  One episode of The Crown, however, particularly grabbed my attention, causing me to ponder the theme of ‘everyman’ in season 3, episode 7 entitled, “Moondust.”

It’s July of 1969, Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) attends church at the chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle, with her family and husband, Prince Philip (Tobias Menzies), dutifully in tow. Like a petulant teenager, on the walk to the chapel, Philp asks Elizabeth, ‘’Why do you do this? Week after week, like lemmings? What does it do for you, honestly?’’  She makes some off the cuff remark about keeping her focus on what really matters. 

During the service, the elderly vicar (Clifford Rose) drones on and on. Again, Philip remarks, ‘’It’s not a sermon, it’s a general anesthetic!” Clearly, Philip is disenchanted with ‘religion’ as he observes with disdain and sarcasm. 

I labeled Philip at this point as yet another rich, bored Royal, probably an elitist to boot.

Remarkably, Elizabeth seizes this opportunity to search for a new, younger ‘with it’ vicar or Dean of Windsor. She commissions her staff to find “a good fit for the job I’ve asked him to do.” The search begins. 

Enter, Dean Robin Woods (Tim McMullan) , the new young vicar. The new vicar asks permission to use one of the many empty buildings on Windsor grounds to start a spiritual center for priests to come and recharge in a retreat setting. Philip gives his permission and is coerced by Vicar Woods to come and check out one of his sessions.

After listening to the assorted clergymen give their stories as to why they felt the need to attend the St. George’s House, Philip is appalled by the hopelessness in their attitudes. He snaps at them, “Sitting around talking won’t improve their situations. We are men of action, get up, and DO something.” 

The Space Race

The late 1960s is the era of the Russian/American Space race. Who will get a man on the moon first? British TV commentary drones on and on, but Philip is mesmerized by the space shot coverage.  His obsession with ‘’What is out there? What are the astronauts experiencing? And what is our place in the universe, the grand scheme of things?’’ seems to be the question ‘’everyman’’ contemplates from age to age. 

Philip, a person of royalty, with all the education, wealth, privilege a man could desire, struggles with these fundamental questions, longings, and desires. During one scene, after Neil Armstrong’s Apollo Moon landing, Prince Philip co-pilots a commercial plane. He asks the pilot if he may take over control, which the pilot lets him. Philip cruises the plane to the upper limits of its altitude capacity, while the pilot strongly protests, to experience in some small way, what the astronauts experienced in space flight. 

Back to St. George’s House 

Philip attends a second session at St. George’s House. He listens then summarizes what he sees as the problem “religion’’ has in the current world.

1. A failure to connect with the everyday lives of people.
2. Spiritual needs are being met elsewhere. ‘’500 million people getting from TV (the moon landing) what they used to get from church, wonder, awe…”
3. The more science answers questions and explains things, the less need there is for a God to provide it.

The Vicar quotes Keats, 

What is it there in the moon that thou should’ st move my heart so potently?

He goes on, “Now we know what the moon is – nothing, just dust, silence, and monochromatic rubble.” He picks up his Bible,

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy hands, the moon and stars that you set in place- what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that thou considers him? (Psalm 8:3)

An Audience with the Astronauts

Later, the astronauts tour England and have an audience with the Queen. Philip asks for a private meeting with the three astronauts, Neil Armstrong, (Henry Pettigrew) Michael Collins (Andrew Lee Potts), and Buzz Aldrin (Felix Scott). “Man to man, pilot to pilot’’ and is granted a fifteen-minute meeting. Philip ponders what profound questions he will ask and what answers they may give him, envisioning great philosophical discussion, no doubt.

 The ‘everyman’ rises again. He tells the three astronauts, ‘’I identified with who you are…’’

His technical questions go out the window when they meet. 

“There comes a time in life when one starts to evaluate what one’s accomplished, because of the positions I’ve ended up in, who I’ve become (who I married!) I haven’t been able to become the adventurer I wanted to…I want to know what your thoughts were…out there…’’

Their lame answers disappoint Philip. The astronauts are more interested and animated when asking him about how it feels to live in Buckingham Palace. He states, 

“…they delivered as astronauts but failed as human beings.”

The astronauts failed to fill Philips’s desire for answers to the bigger spiritual and philosophical questions that, at times, ‘everyman’ struggles with. To find something to fill the ‘God-shaped hole,’ we all are created with as Aquinas says. We try to fill that hole with experiences, stuff, people, and relationships…everything but what it was designed to be filled with God.

In Search of Answers

Philip returns to the men’s group at St. George’s Center again. He is more thoughtful and humble as he describes himself to the others, 

Drip, doubt, disaffection, unease, discomfort – a jealous fascination with the achievements of the astronauts. My mother died recently. She saw something was amiss…a wonderful word, ‘amiss’, something is missing…faith.  She saw it. ‘How’s your faith?’ she asked me. I’m here to admit to you that I’ve lost it. And without it, what is there? Loneliness, emptiness, anticlimax…going all the way to the moon to find nothing but haunting desolation. That is what faithlessness is, as opposed to finding wonder and exhilaration. The solution to our problems is not in science but bravery.

“The answer is in here…(taps his heart)…faith!’’ replies Dean Woods.

“Help me,” begs Philip.

The prologue as this episode ends notes:

Prince Philip and Dean Robin Woods became lifelong friends. For over fifty years, St. George’s House has been a center for the exploration of faith and philosophy. Its success is one of the achievements Prince Philip is most proud of.

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This episode of The Crown reminded me again that in despite all the trappings of civilization, all the college degrees, skills, and abilities, wealth and status one may possess, there is a part of us created to know our Creator. Nothing on this earth will satisfy that desire within our questioning souls.

The part of me that admires the British culture and civilization was somewhat taken aback in realizing that even the most privileged and well educated in our world struggle with the underlying desire to know who we are and our place in the grand scheme of things. 

Cover photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Depending on how a gem is held, light refracts differently. At B+PC we engage in Pop Culture topics to see ideas from a new angle, to bring us to a deeper understanding. And like Pastor Shane Willard notes, we want “…Jesus to get bigger, the cross to get clearer, the Resurrection to be central…” Instead of approaching a topic from “I don’t want to be wrong,“ we strive for the alternative “I want to expand my perspective.” 

So, we invite you to engage with us here. What piqued your curiosity to dig deeper? What line inspired you to action? What idea made you ask, “Hmmm?” Let’s join with our community to wrestle with our thoughts in love in the Comment Section! See you there! 

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On Saturday April 18, 2020 at 6pm in London and noon in Arkansas, I had a chance to ask Ricky Gervais a question on his Twitter Live broadcast which was  “Is Tony a Nihilist?” At the 20:51 mark Ricky answers my question. Below is the video:

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April 24, 2020 
Ricky Gervais 
Dear Ricky,  

This is the 7th day in a row that I have written another open letter to you to comment on some of your episodes in season one of AFTER LIFE, but actually today I got to see AFTER LIFE season 2. I had to get up at 2am in the morning to do it, but it was well worth it. So just like before I wanted to make some comments on episodes and then to pass along some evidence that indicates the Bible is historically accurate.

First, let me review. Here are letters to Ricky Gervais since Ricky answered my question about Tony being a nihilist on his Twitter Live broadcast that tuned into at noon on Saturday April 18, 2020: 

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Open Letter to Ricky Gervais on our interaction today concerning NIHILISM and AFTER LIFE’s Tony

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Open Letter #2 to Ricky Gervais on comparison of the Tony of AFTER LIFE to the Solomon of ECCLESIASTES, Kath: If death is just the end then what is the point?

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Open Letter #3 to Ricky Gervais on comparison of the Tony of AFTER LIFE to the Solomon of ECCLESIASTES, “Lady Marmalade” is famous song for its sexually suggestive French chorus of “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)?”, which means “Do you want to sleep with me (tonight)?”

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Open Letter #4 to Ricky Gervais on comparison of the Tony of AFTER LIFE to the Solomon of ECCLESIASTES, —- For both Tony and Solomon Life UNDER THE SUN dictates that both animals and humans are controlled by time and chance, and neither has an advantage!
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Open Letter #5 to Ricky Gervais on comparison of the Tony of AFTER LIFE to the Solomon of ECCLESIASTES, Both Tony and Solomon After disappointments in their lives turn to alcohol and stimulates (heroine in Tony’s case) to numb the pain of vainly searching for ultimate answers in life UNDER THE SUN!

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Open Letter #6 to Ricky Gervais on comparison of the Tony of AFTER LIFE to the Solomon of ECCLESIASTES, Both are searching for answers UNDER THE SUN but are coming up empty!

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The new emphasis in the beginning of season 2 is the paranormal. Episode 1 in season two starts off with Tony going to a yoga session with Matt and it turns out to be a disaster. Next at a person wants to tell the newspaper how he got raped by the spirit of Liberace. Of course, we can’t leave our Kath who brings up the paranormal and the idea that she can tell when an angel enters a room.  

Why do so many people throughout the world believe in God and an afterlife? Ecclesiastes 3:11 “God has planted eternity in the heart of men…” (Living Bible). 

Even Tony seems to feel this in episode 4 of the first season of AFTER LIFE when Tony talks about being with his wife in the future.

Matt: Tony that doesn’t even make sense. You are a rational man. You don’t even believe in an afterlife. 

Tony: I know she is nowhere. Alright. But get this through your head. I would rather be no where with her then somewhere without her. 

ironically, Charles Darwin even noted: 

At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep [#1] inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons...Formerly I was led by feelings such as those…to the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that [#2] whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. [#3] But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind…(Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1911, Vol. a, page 29).

 
https://youtu.be/zKlV_iuC9Vc

The emphasis on the paranormal in season two of AFTERLIFE reminds me of when I noticed in 1979 while going door to door telling people about Christ that many people who were involved in SPIRITUALISM and they thought they could talk to the dead. I totally reject that view. Arthur Conan Doyle in a famous 1927 tells of his firm belief in spiritualism. 

https://youtu.be/zKlV_iuC9Vc

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle talks about Spirits and Spiritualism 1927

Actually I spent a whole summer in England in 1979 and it was a very interesting experience for several reasons. I was part of the organization OPERATION MOBILIZATION and we were an Christian Evangelical group that in that summer went to the homes of Muslims and Hindus and shared the gospel with them in the Manchester area. I also spent some time and London and got to attend All Souls Church, Langham Place, and hear the famous John Stott preach and I got to meet Michael Baughen who was the pastor (or Rector as you would say in England) at the time.  Three noteworthy events during that time and one was attending a MANCHESTER UNITED soccer game. Secondly, I met several people who had recently visited with Cat Stevens and they told me he had recently converted to Islam and changed with name to Yusuf Islam. Cat Stevens had performed the song “Morning Has Broken” a few years earlier and it was one of my favorite songs. Thirdly, I got depressed in August because the sun only came out about 4 or 5 times that whole summer in England.

Now back to the paranormal and I must say that I totally agree with not accepting anything without evidence. This is a review I did a few years ago.THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. New York: Random House, 1995. 457 pages, extensive references, index. Hardcover; $25.95.
PSCF 48 (December 1996): 263.Sagan is the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Cornell University. He is author of many best sellers, including Cosmos, which became the most widely read science book ever published in the English language.In this book Sagan discusses the claims of the paranormal and fringe-science. For instance, he examines closely such issues as astrology (p. 303), crop circles (p. 75), channelers (pp. 203-206), UFO abductees (pp. 185-186), faith-healing fakes (p. 229), and witch-hunting (p. 119). Readers of The Skeptical Inquirer will notice that Sagan’s approach is very similar.Sagan writes:The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal is an organization of scientists, academics, magicians, and others dedicated to skeptical scrutiny of emerging or full-blown pseudo-sciences. It was founded by the University of Buffalo philosopher Paul Kurtz in 1976. I’ve been affiliated with it since its beginning. Its acronym, CSICOP, is pronounced Asci-cop C as if it’s an organization of scientists performing a police function Y CSICOP publishes a bimonthly periodical called AThe Skeptical Inquirer. On the day it arrives, I take it home from the office and pore through its pages, wondering what new misunderstandings will be revealed (p. 299).Sagan points out that in 1991 two pranksters in England admitted that they had been making crop figures for 15 years. They flattened the wheat with a heavy steel bar. Later on they used planks and ropes, but the media paid brief attention to the confession of these hoaxers. Why? Sagan concludes, ’Demons sell; hoaxers are boring and in bad taste’ (p. 76).Christians must admire Sagan’s commitment to critical thinking, logic, and freedom of thought. He takes on many subjects in this book, and the vast majority of his analysis is exceptional. However, his opinions on religious matters are affected by his devotion to scientism. Sagan believes only that which can be proved by science is true. He disputes psychologist Charles Tart’s assertion that scientism is ’dehumanizing, despiritualizing’ (p. 267). Sagan comments, ’There is very little doubt that, in the everyday world, matter (and energy) exist. The evidence is all around us. In contrast, as I’ve mentioned earlier the evidence for something non-material called `spirit’ or `soul’ is very much in doubt’ (p. 267).Science can only prove things about the physical world, and it cannot prove anything about the spiritual world. Does that mean that the mind and soul don’t exist? Of course not! First, we must realize that science is not the only way to truth. Even Sagan must admit that he must justify values like ’be objective’ or ’report data honestly’. Where do those values come from? They came from outside science, but they must be in place for science to work.Sagan gives an illustration that contrasts physics and metaphysics. He shows that the physicist’s idea will have to be discarded if tests fail in the laboratory. Therefore, the main difference between physics and metaphysics is that the metaphysicist has no laboratory. This is a cute story, but can science answer the basic questions that underline all knowledge? Metaphysics is necessary for science to take place. It is not true that science is superior to metaphysics like Sagan would have us believe. The presuppositions of science can only be validated by philosophy. J. P. Moreland has correctly said, ’The validation of science is a philosophical issue, not a scientific one, and any claim to the contrary will be a self-refuting philosophical claim’ (Scaling the Secular City, p. 197).Second, the absence of scientific evidence for the soul does not mean the soul does not exist. Sagan himself states,’Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’ (p. 213).I was impressed with the way Sagan put his inner thoughts on the table. For instance, he comments, ’Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death…If some good evidence for life after death was announced, I’d be eager to examine it; but it would have to be real scientific data, not mere anecdote’ (pp. 203-204). What kind of evidence is Sagan looking for? It certainly is not vague prophecies. He states, ’Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy…Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs…Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? (p. 30). The answer to that question is yes. Christianity can point to very clear passages such as Isaiah 53 and Daniel 11 written hundreds of years before the events occurred.While comparing science to religion, Sagan comments, ’Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge. It’s just the best we have (pp. 27-28). Here Sagan is only half right. Science is imperfect, but it is not better than the Bible.’The Demon-Haunted World is a thought-provoking book that I thoroughly enjoyed. Some of Sagan’s anti-Christian views come through, but on the whole, this book uses critical thinking and logic and applies them to the claims of the paranormal and fringe-science of our day.Reviewed by Everette Hatcher III, P.O. Box 23416, Little Rock, AR 72221.

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Francis Schaeffer’s works  are the basis for a large portion of my blogposts and they have stood the test of time. In fact, many people would say that many of the things he wrote in the 1960’s  were righton  in the sense he saw where our western society was heading and he knew that abortion, infanticide and youth enthansia were  moral boundaries we would be crossing  in the coming decades because ofhumanism and these are the discussions we are having now!)

There is evidence that points to the fact that the Bible is historicallytrue as Schaeffer pointed out in episode 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? There is a basis then for faith in Christ alone for our eternal hope. This link shows how to do that.

Francis Schaeffer in Art and the Bible noted, “Many modern artists, it seems to me, have forgotten the value that art has in itself. Much modern art is far too intellectual to be great art. Many modern artists seem not to see the distinction between man and non-man, and it is a part of the lostness of modern man that they no longer see value in the work of art as a work of art.” 

Many modern artists are left in this point of desperation that Schaeffer points out and it reminds me of the despair that Solomon speaks of in Ecclesiastes.  Christian scholar Ravi Zacharias has noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term ‘under the sun.’ What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system, and you are left with only this world of time plus chance plus matter.” THIS IS EXACT POINT SCHAEFFER SAYSSECULAR ARTISTS ARE PAINTING FROM TODAY BECAUSE THEY BELIEVED ARE A RESULT OF MINDLESS CHANCE.

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Francis Schaeffer with his son Franky pictured below. Francis andEdith (who passed away in 2013) opened L’ Abri in 1955 in Switzerland.

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Francis Schaeffer in his book HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT (Chapter 4) asserts:

Because men have lost the objective basis for certainty of knowledge in the areas in which they are working, more and more we are going to find them manipulating science according to their own sociological or political desires rather than standing upon concrete objectivity. We are going to find increasingly what I would call sociological science, where men manipulate the scientific facts. Carl Sagan (1934-1996),professor of astronomy and space science at Cornell University, demonstrates that the concept of a manipulated science is not far-fetched. He mixes science and science fiction constantly. He is a true follower of Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). The media gives him much TV prime time and much space in the press and magazine coverage, and the United State Government spent millions of dollars in the special equipment which was included in the equipment of the Mars probe–at his instigation, to give support to his obsessive certainty that life would be found on Mars, or that even large-sized life would be found there. With Carl Sagan the line concerning objective science is blurred, and the media spreads his mixture of science and science fiction out to the public as exciting fact. 

This mixing of science and science fiction had a purpose behind it. James Hubner enlightens us. James Hubner in his book LIGHT UP THE DARKNESS (pages 18-19) wrote:

Carl Sagan said this about extraterrestrial creatures, “When we know who they are, we will know who we are.” That is a remarkable statement, a remarkable religious statement. Why is it significant to know our identity? Why do humans desire to know who they are? …By asking these questions, Sagan exposed his own image-bearing soul while being completely unaware of it. 

I have written a lot in the past about Carl Sagan on my blog and over and over again these posts have been some of my most popular because I believe Carl Sagan did a great job of articulating the naturalistic view that the world is a result of nothing more than impersonal matter, time and chance. Christians like me have to challenge those who hold this view and that is why I took it upon myself to read many of Sagan’s books and to watch his film series Cosmos.

On December 5, 1995, I got a letter back from Carl Sagan and I was very impressed that he took time to answer several of my questions and to respond to some of the points that I had made in my previous letters. I had been reading lots of his books and watching him on TV since 1980 and my writing today is a result of that correspondence. It is my conclusion that Carl Sagan died an unfulfilled man on December 20, 1996 with many of the big questions he had going unanswered.

Much of Carl Sagan’s aspirations and thoughts were revealed to a mass audience of movie goers just a few months after his death. The movie “CONTACT” with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey  is a fictional story written by Sagan  about the SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE (SETI).Sagan visited the set while it was filming and it was released on July 11, 1997 after his unfortunate death.

The movie CONTACT got me thinking about Sagan’s life long hope to find a higher life form out in the universe and I was reminded of Dr. Donald E. Tarter of NASA who wrote me  in a letter a year or so earlier and stated, “I am not a theist. I simply and honestly do not know the answer to the great questions…This brings me to why I am interested in the SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE (SETI)…Let me assure you, one of the first questions I would want to ask another intelligence if one were discovered is, DO YOU BELIEVE IN OR HAVE EVIDENCE OF A SUPREME INTELLIGENCE?”

Was Sagan ever satisfied with the answers he came up with in his life? It is my view that  true peace and satisfaction can come from a personal relationship with Christ and only in the Bible can we find absolute answers that touch this world we live in. The Apostle Paul was totally content when he wrote the book of Philippians from a jail in Rome right before he was beheaded (according to tradition). Paul observed, “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him (Christ) who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11-13). On March 11, 2012 my pastor Brandon Bernard at Fellowship Church Little Rock read that scripture and then commented:

Paul is reminding us that in every circumstance and in everything he has gone through that his satisfaction is found deeply in Christ. You think about this guy who is writing from prison. He is in this prison cell and it is a hardship in his life, but him of all people is saying that “I am writing to you but I am content and I am satisfied.” That is a statement you don’t hear from a lot of people these days… A lot of people are discontent and dissatisfied… Think about the poets from your generation or the generation before us. How about the deep theologians called “The Rolling Stones.” Remember them. They wrote this song “I can’t get no satisfaction.” And you know what they say after that phrase? “And I try and I try and I try.” I am not sure how deep most of their lyrics are, but they voice the cry of many people. “I can’t get no satisfaction and I try and I am trying and I am trying.”

What about one of those other poets by the name of Bono who wrote a song called, “I still haven’t found what I am looking for.” It is interesting. “I still haven’t found what I am looking for.” It has a nice melody to it but there is probably a reason why it is so popular because there is a lot of people deep down in their soul feel like they haven’t found what they are looking for.

It is true. What is so funny to me is that what is so desired is so elusive. 

Rice Broocks in his book GOD’S NOT DEAD noted:

Astronomer Carl Sagan was a prolific writer and trustee of the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) founded in 1984 to scan the universe for any signs of life beyond earth. Sagan’s best-selling work COSMOS also became an award-winning television series explaining the wonders of the universe and exporting the belief not in an intelligent Creator but in potential intelligent aliens. He believed somehow that by knowing who they are, we would discover who we as humans really are. “The very thought of there being other beings different from all of us can have a very useful cohering role for the human species” (quoted from you tube clip “Carl Sagan appears on CBC to discuss the importance of SETI [Carl Sagan Archives]” at the 7 minute mark, Oct 1988 ). Sagan reasoning? If aliens could have contacted us, knowing how impossible it is for us to reach them, they would have the answers we seek to our ultimate questions. This thought process shows the desperate need we have as humans for answers to the great questions of our existence. Does life have any ultimate meaning and purpose? Do we as humans have any more value than the other animals? Is there a purpose to the universe, or more specifically, to our individual lives?

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Carl Sagan had to live  in the world that God made with the conscience that God gave him. This created a tension. As you know the movie CONTACT was written by Carl Sagan and it was about Dr. Arroway’s SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE (SETI) program and her desire to make contact with aliens and ask them questions. It is my view that Sagan should have examined more closely  the accuracy of the Bible and it’s fulfilled prophecies from the Old Testament in particular before chasing after aliens from other planets for answers. Sagan himself had written,”Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death…If some good evidence for life after death was announced, I’d be eager to examine it; but it would have to be real scientific data, not mere antedote”(pp 203-204, The DemonHaunted World, 1995).

Sagan said he had taken a look at Old Testament prophecy and it did not impress him because it was too vague. He had taken a look at Christ’s life in the gospels, but said it was unrealistic for God to send a man to communicate for God. Instead, Sagan suggested that God could have written a mathematical formula in the Bible or put a cross in the sky. However, what happens at the conclusion of the movie CONTACT?  This is Sagan’s last message to the world in the form of the movie that appeared shortly after his death. Dr Arroway (Jodie Foster) who is a young atheistic scientist who meets with an alien and this alien takes the form of Dr. Arroway’s father. The alien tells her that they thought this would make it easier for her. In fact, he meets her on a beach that resembles a beach that she grew up near so she would also be comfortable with the surroundings. Carl Sagan when writing this script chose to put the alien in human form so Dr. Arroway could relate to the alien.Christ chose to take our form and come into our world too and still many make up excuses for not believing.

Lastly, Carl Sagan could not rid himself of the “mannishness of man.” Those who have read Francis Schaeffer’s many books know exactly what I am talking about. We are made in God’s image and we are living in God’s world. Therefore, we can not totally suppress the objective truths of our unique humanity. In my letter of Jan 10, 1996 to Dr. Sagan, I really camped out on this point a long time because I had read Sagan’s  book SHADOWS OF FORGOTTON ANCESTORS  and in it  Sagan attempts to  totally debunk the idea that we are any way special. However, what does Dr. Sagan have Dr. Arroway say at the end of the movie CONTACT when she is testifying before Congress about the alien that  communicated with her? See if you can pick out the one illogical word in her statement: “I was given a vision how tiny, insignificant, rare and precious we all are. We belong to something that is greater than ourselves and none of us are alone.”

Dr Sagan deep down knows that we are special so he could not avoid putting the word “precious” in there. Francis Schaeffersaid unbelievers are put in a place of tension when they have to live in the world that God has made because deep down they know they are special because God has put that knowledge in their hearts.We are not the result of survival of the fittest and headed back to the dirt forevermore. This is what Schaeffer calls “taking the roof off” of the unbeliever’s worldview and showing the inconsistency that exists.

In several of my letters to Sagan I quoted this passage below:

Romans 1:17-22 (Amplified Bible)

¹⁷For in the Gospel a righteousness which God ascribes is revealed, both springing from faith and leading to faith [disclosed through the way of faith that arouses to more faith]. As it is written, The man who through faith is just and upright shall live and shall live by faith.^(A)

¹⁸For God’s [holy] wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and hinder the truth and make it inoperative.

¹⁹For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them.

²⁰For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification],^(B)

²¹Because when they knew and recognized Him as God, they did not honor and glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. But instead they became futile and ^[a]godless in their thinking [with vain imaginings, foolish reasoning, and stupid speculations] and their senseless minds were darkened.

²²Claiming to be wise, they became fools [professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves].

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Can a man  or a woman find lasting meaning without God? Three thousand years ago, Solomon took a look at life “under the sun” in his book of Ecclesiastes. Christian scholar Ravi Zacharias has noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term ‘under the sun.’ What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system, and you are left with only this world of time plus chance plus matter.”

Let me show you some inescapable conclusions if you choose to live without God in the picture. Solomon came to these same conclusions when he looked at life “under the sun.”

1. Death is the great equalizer (Eccl 3:20, “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.”)
2. Chance and time have determined the past, and they will determine the future.  (Ecclesiastes 9:11-13 “I have seen something else under the sun:  The race is not to the swift
   or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant  or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.  Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times  that fall unexpectedly upon them.”)
3. Power reigns in this life, and the scales are not balanced(Eccl 4:1; “Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed—
   and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors—  and they have no comforter.” 7:15 “In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: the righteous perishing in their righteousness,  and the wicked living long in their wickedness. ).
4. 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).
5. There is no ultimate lasting meaning in life. (1:2)

By the way, the final chapter of Ecclesiastes finishes with Solomon emphasizing that serving God is the only proper response of man. Solomon looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture in the final chapter of the book in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14:

13 Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.

 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil

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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.

In 1978 I heard the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas when it rose to #6 on the charts. That song told me that Kerry Livgren the writer of that song and a member of Kansas had come to the same conclusion that Solomon had and that “all was meaningless.” I remember mentioning to my friends at church that we may soon see some members of Kansas become Christians because their search for the meaning of life had obviously come up empty even though they had risen from being an unknown band to the top of the music business and had all the wealth and fame that came with that.

Livgren wrote:

“All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”

Both Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope of Kansas became Christians eventually. Kerry Livgren first tried Eastern Religions and Dave Hope had to come out of a heavy drug addiction. I was shocked and elated to see their personal testimony on The 700 Club in 1981 and that same  interview can be seen on youtube today. Livgren lives in Topeka, Kansas today where he teaches “Diggers,” a Sunday school class at Topeka Bible Church. Hope is the head of Worship, Evangelism and Outreach at Immanuel Anglican Church in Destin, Florida.

You can hear Kerry Livgren’s story from this youtube link:

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Solomon wisely noted in Ecclesiastes 3:11 “God has planted eternity in the heart of men…” (Living Bible). No wonder Bertrand Russell wrote in his autobiography, “It is odd, isn’t it? I feel passionately for this world and many things and people in it, and yet…what is it all? There must be something more important, one feels, though I don’t believe there is. I am haunted. Some ghosts, for some extra mundane regions, seem always trying to tell me something that I am to repeat to the world, but I cannot understand that message.”

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Noam Chomsky Quote:

“I believe in a principle that was enunciated rather well by Bertrand Russell which is that you should try to keep away from having irrational beliefs. You should believe things for which you can find some evidence, apart from commitment to principles – like equality, freedom, and justice.”

Quote from Dr. Alexander Vilenkin:

The simple question I will answer immediately is that about a personal God and that I don’t believe, a God that concerns himself with human affairs. We don’t have much evidence for that. As for a  more abstract God some people suggest the level of abstraction that makes the concept pointless. If we identify God with the laws of nature I don’t see why we need another term for the laws of nature.

Mark Balaguer 

QUOTE from the program CLOSER TO TRUTH:

‎”I think the question, Is there a God falls into the category of a physical empirical question. God is supposed to be somebody who created the world. Is there a person who created the world, that’s a perfectly clear question with a right answer and I think it needs to be handled in the way we handle other questions about the physical world, namely by looking for evidence. So I don’t think that’s a factually empty question, It could turn out…

Applying the Science of Probability to the Scriptures

Do statistics prove the Bible’s supernatural origin?

by Dr. David R. Reagan

For years I have been quoting a book by Peter Stoner called Science Speaks. I like to use a remarkable illustration from it to show how Bible prophecy proves that Jesus was truly God in the flesh.

I decided that I would try to find a copy of the book so that I could discover all that it had to say about Bible prophecy. The book was first published in 1958 by Moody Press. After considerable searching on the Internet, I was finally able to find a revised edition published in 1976.

Peter Stoner was chairman of the mathematics and astronomy departments at Pasadena City College until 1953 when he moved to Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. There he served as chairman of the science division. At the time he wrote this book, he was professor emeritus of science at Westmont.

In the edition I purchased, there was a foreword by Dr. Harold Hartzler, an officer of the American Scientific Affiliation. He wrote that the manuscript had been carefully reviewed by a committee of his organization and that “the mathematical analysis included is based upon principles of probability which are thoroughly sound.” He further stated that in the opinion of the Affiliation, Professor Stoner “has applied these principles in a proper and convincing way.”

The book is divided into three sections. Two relate directly to Bible prophecy. The first section deals with the scientific validity of the Genesis account of creation.

Part One: The Genesis Record

Stoner begins with a very interesting observation. He points out that his copy of Young’s General Astronomy, published in 1898, is full of errors. Yet, the Bible, written over 2,000 years ago is devoid of scientific error. For example, the shape of the earth is mentioned in Isaiah 40:22. Gravity can be found in Job 26:7. Ecclesiastes 1:6mentions atmospheric circulation. A reference to ocean currents can be found in Psalm 8:8, and the hydraulic cycle is described in Ecclesiastes 1:7 and Isaiah 55:10. The second law of thermodynamics is outlined in Psalm 102:25-27 and Romans 8:21. And these are only a few examples of scientific truths written in the Scriptures long before they were “discovered” by scientists.

Stoner proceeds to present scientific evidence in behalf of special creation. For example, he points out that science had previously taught that special creation was impossible because matter could not be destroyed or created. He then points out that atomic physics had now proved that energy can be turned into matter and matter into energy.

He then considers the order of creation as presented in Genesis 1:1-13. He presents argument after argument from a scientific viewpoint to sustain the order which Genesis chronicles. He then asks, “What chance did Moses have when writing the first chapter [of Genesis] of getting thirteen items all accurate and in satisfactory order?” His calculations conclude it would be one chance in 31,135,104,000,000,000,000,000 (1 in 31 x 10²¹). He concludes, “Perhaps God wrote such an account in Genesis so that in these latter days, when science has greatly developed, we would be able to verify His account and know for a certainty that God created this planet and the life on it.”

The only disappointing thing about Stoner’s book is that he spiritualizes the reference to days in Genesis, concluding that they refer to periods of time of indefinite length. Accordingly, he concludes that the earth is approximately 4 billion years old. In his defense, keep in mind that he wrote this book before the foundation of the modern Creation Science Movement which was founded in the 1960’s by Dr. Henry Morris. That movement has since produced many convincing scientific arguments in behalf of a young earth with an age of only 6,000 years.

Peter Stoner’s Calculations Regarding Messianic Prophecy

Peter Stoner calculated the probability of just 8 Messianic prophecies being fulfilled in the life of Jesus. As you read through these prophecies, you will see that all estimates were calculated as conservatively as possible.

1. The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2).
   The average population of Bethlehem from the time of Micah to the present (1958) divided by the average population of the earth during the same period = 7,150/2,000,000,000 or 2.8×10⁵.
2. A messenger will prepare the way for the Messiah (Malachi 3:1).
   One man in how many, the world over, has had a forerunner (in this case, John the Baptist) to prepare his way?
   Estimate: 1 in 1,000 or 1×10³.
3. The Messiah will enter Jerusalem as a king riding on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9).
   One man in how many, who has entered Jerusalem as a ruler, has entered riding on a donkey?
   Estimate: 1 in 100 or 1×10².
4. The Messiah will be betrayed by a friend and suffer wounds in His hands (Zechariah 13:6).
   One man in how many, the world over, has been betrayed by a friend, resulting in wounds in his hands?
   Estimate: 1 in 1,000 or 1×10³.
5. The Messiah will be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12).
   Of the people who have been betrayed, one in how many has been betrayed for exactly 30 pieces of silver?
   Estimate: 1 in 1,000 or 1×10³.
6. The betrayal money will be used to purchase a potter’s field (Zechariah 11:13).
   One man in how many, after receiving a bribe for the betrayal of a friend, has returned the money, had it refused, and then experienced it being used to buy a potter’s field?
   Estimate: 1 in 100,000 or 1×10⁵.
7. The Messiah will remain silent while He is afflicted (Isaiah 53:7).
   One man in how many, when he is oppressed and afflicted, though innocent, will make no defense of himself?
   Estimate: 1 in 1,000 or 1×10³.
8. The Messiah will die by having His hands and feet pierced (Psalm 22:16).
   One man in how many, since the time of David, has been crucified?
   Estimate: 1 in 10,000 or 1×10⁴.

Multiplying all these probabilities together produces a number (rounded off) of 1×10²⁸. Dividing this number by an estimate of the number of people who have lived since the time of these prophecies (88 billion) produces a probability of all 8 prophecies being fulfilled accidently in the life of one person. That probability is 1in 10¹⁷ or 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. That’s one in one hundred quadrillion!

Part Two: The Accuracy of Prophecy

The second section of Stoner’s book, is entitled “Prophetic Accuracy.” This is where the book becomes absolutely fascinating. One by one, he takes major Bible prophecies concerning cities and nations and calculates the odds of their being fulfilled. The first is a prophecy in Ezekiel 26 concerning the city of Tyre. Seven prophecies are contained in this chapter which was written in 590 BC:

1. Nebuchadnezzar shall conquer the city (vs. 7-11).
2. Other nations will assist Nebuchadnezzar (v. 3).
3. The city will be made like a bare rock (vs. 4 & 14).
4. It will become a place for the spreading of fishing nets (vs. 5 & 14).
5. Its stones and timbers will be thrown into the sea (v. 12).
6. Other cities will fear greatly at the fall of Tyre (v. 16).
7. The old city of Tyre will never be rebuilt (v. 14).

Four years after this prophecy was given, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Tyre. The siege lasted 13 years. When the city finally fell in 573 BC, it was discovered that everything of value had been moved to a nearby island.

Two hundred and forty-one years later Alexander the Great arrived on the scene. Fearing that the fleet of Tyre might be used against his homeland, he decided to take the island where the city had been moved to. He accomplished this goal by building a causeway from the mainland to the island, and he did that by using all the building materials from the ruins of the old city. Neighboring cities were so frightened by Alexander’s conquest that they immediately opened their gates to him. Ever since that time, Tyre has remained in ruins and is a place where fishermen spread their nets.

Thus, every detail of the prophecy was fulfilled exactly as predicted. Stoner calculated the odds of such a prophecy being fulfilled by chance as being 1 in 75,000,000, or 1 in 7.5×10⁷. (The exponent 7 indicates that the decimal is to be moved to the right seven places.)

Stoner proceeds to calculate the probabilities of the prophecies concerning Samaria, Gaza and Ashkelon, Jericho, Palestine, Moab and Ammon, Edom, and Babylon. He also calculates the odds of prophecies being fulfilled that predicted the closing of the Eastern Gate (Ezekiel 44:1-3), the plowing of Mount Zion (Micah 3:12), and the enlargement of Jerusalem according to a prescribed pattern (Jeremiah 31:38-40).

Combining all these prophecies, he concludes that “the probability of these 11 prophecies coming true, if written in human wisdom, is… 1 in 5.76×10⁵⁹. Needless to say, this is a number beyond the realm of possibility.

Part Three: Messianic Prophecy

The third and most famous section of Stoner’s book concerns Messianic prophecy. His theme verse for this section is John 5:39 — “Search the Scriptures because… it is these that bear witness of Me.”

Stoner proceeds to select eight of the best known prophecies about the Messiah and calculates the odds of their accidental fulfillment in one person as being 1 in 10¹⁷.

I love the way Stoner illustrated the meaning of this number. He asked the reader to imagine filling the State of Texas knee deep in silver dollars. Include in this huge number one silver dollar with a black check mark on it. Then, turn a blindfolded person loose in this sea of silver dollars. The odds that the first coin he would pick up would be the one with the black check mark are the same as 8 prophecies being fulfilled accidentally in the life of Jesus.

The point, of course, is that when people say that the fulfillment of prophecy in the life of Jesus was accidental, they do not know what they are talking about. Keep in mind that Jesus did not just fulfill 8 prophecies, He fulfilled 108. The chances of fulfilling 16 is 1 in 10⁴⁵. When you get to a total of 48, the odds increase to 1 in 10¹⁵⁷. Accidental fulfillment of these prophecies is simply beyond the realm of possibility.

When confronted with these statistics, skeptics will often fall back on the argument that Jesus purposefully fulfilled the prophecies. There is no doubt that Jesus was aware of the prophecies and His fulfillment of them. For example, when He got ready to enter Jerusalem the last time, He told His disciples to find Him a donkey to ride so that the prophecy of Zechariah could be fulfilled which said,“Behold, your King is coming to you, gentle, and mounted on a donkey” (Matthew 21:1-5 andZechariah 9:9).

But many of the prophecies concerning the Messiah could not be purposefully fulfilled — such as the town of His birth (Micah 5:2) or the nature of His betrayal (Psalm 41:9), or the manner of His death (Zechariah 13:6 and Psalm 22:16).

One of the most remarkable Messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures is the one that precisely states that the Messiah will die by crucifixion. It is found in Psalm 22 where David prophesied the Messiah would die by having His hands and feet pierced (Psalm 22:16). That prophecy was written 1,000 years before Jesus was born. When it was written, the Jewish method of execution was by stoning. The prophecy was also written many years before the Romans perfected crucifixion as a method of execution.

Even when Jesus was killed, the Jews still relied on stoning as their method of execution, but they had lost the power to implement the death penalty due to Roman occupation. That is why they were forced to take Jesus to Pilate, the Roman governor, and that’s how Jesus ended up being crucified, in fulfillment of David’s prophecy.

The bottom line is that the fulfillment of Bible prophecy in the life of Jesus proves conclusively that He truly was God in the flesh. It also proves that the Bible is supernatural in origin.

Note: A detailed listing of all 108 prophecies fulfilled by Jesus is contained in Dr. Reagan’s book,Christ in Prophecy Study Guide. It also contains an analytical listing of all the Messianic prophecies in the Bible — both Old and New Testaments — concerning both the First and Second comings of the Messiah.

For creation science resources see the following websites:

• Institute for Creation Research
• Answers in Genesis
• Creation World View
• Creation Truth Foundation
• Probe Ministries

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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.

Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, 13900 Cottontail 

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Part 1 “Why have integrity in Godless Darwinian Universe where Might makes Right?”

Part 2 “My April 14, 2016 Letter to Ricky mentioned Book of Ecclesiastes and the Meaninglessness of Life”

Part 3 Letter about Brandon Burlsworth concerning suffering and pain and evil in the world.  “Why didn’t Jesus save her [from cancer]?” (Tony’s 10 year old nephew George in episode 2)

Part 4 Letter on Solomon on Death Tony in episode one, “It should be everyone’s moral duty to kill themselves.”

Part 5 Letter on subject of Learning in Ecclesiastes “I don’t read books of fiction but mainly science and philosophy”

Part 6 Letter on Luxuries in Ecclesiastes Part 6, The Music of AFTERLIFE (Part A)

Part 7 Letter on Labor in Ecclesiastes My Letter to Ricky on Easter in 2017 concerning Book of Ecclesiastes and the legacy of a person’s life work

Part 8 Letter on Liquor in Ecclesiastes Tony’s late wife Lisa told him, “Don’t get drunk all the time alright? It will only make you feel worse in the log run!”

Part 9 Letter on Laughter in Ecclesiastes , I said of laughter, “It is foolishness;” and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” Ecclesiastes 2:2

Part 10 Final letter to Ricky on Ladies in Ecclesiastes “I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed…behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” Ecclesiastes 2:8-11.

Part 11 Letter about Daniel Stanhope and optimistic humanism  “If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless.” (Francis Schaeffer)

Part 12 Letter on how pursuit of God is only way to get Satisfaction Dan Jarrell “[In Ecclesiastes] if one seeks satisfaction they will never find it. In fact, every pleasure will be fleeting and can not be sustained, BUT IF ONE SEEKS GOD THEN ONE FINDS SATISFACTION”

Part 13 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Solomon realizing he will die just as a dog will die “For men and animals both breathe the same air, and both die. So mankind has no real advantage over the beasts; what an absurdity!” Ecclesiastes

Part 14 Letter to Stephen Hawking on 3 conclusions of humanism and Bertrand Russell destruction of optimistic humanism. “That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms—no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”(Bertrand Russell, Free Man’s Worship)

Part 15 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Leonardo da Vinci and Solomon and Meaningless of life “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind” Ecclesiastes Book of Ecclesiastes Part 15 “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind” Ecclesiastes 2:17

Part 16 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Solomon’s longing for death but still fear of death and 5 conclusions of humanism on life UNDER THE SUN. Francis Schaeffer “Life is just a series of continual and unending cycles and man is stuck in the middle of the cycle. Youth, old age, Death. Does Solomon at this point embrace nihilism? Yes!!! He exclaims that the hates life (Ecclesiastes 2:17), he longs for death (4:2-3) Yet he stills has a fear of death (2:14-16)”

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Milton Friedman – A Conversation On Minimum Wage FREE TO CHOOSE

April 14, 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. 

There are several issues raised in your book that I would like to discuss with you such as the minimum wage law, the liberal press, the cause of 2007 financial meltdown, and especially your pro-choice (what I call pro-abortion) view which I strongly object to on both religious and scientific grounds, Two of the most impressive things in your book were your dedication to both the National Prayer Breakfast (which spoke at 8 times and your many visits to the sides of wounded warriors!!

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 was campaigning to push the country in the opposite direction. I didn’t think America could roll back automation or sever the global supply chain (though I did think we could negotiate stronger labor and environmental provisions in our trade agreements). But I was certain we could adapt our laws and institutions, just as we’d done in the past, to make sure that folks willing to work could get a fair shake. At every stop I made, in every city and small town, my message was the same. I promised to raise taxes on high-income Americans to pay for vital investments in education, research, and infrastructure. I promised to strengthen unions and raise the minimum wage as well as to deliver universal healthcare and make college more affordable.
     I wanted people to understand that there was a precedent for bold government action. FDR had saved capitalism from itself, laying the foundation for a post–World War II boom.

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The minimum wage has hurt young people as they seek to enter the job market and prove themselves and start heading up the financial ladder of opportunity and by cutting the bottom of the ladder off it is difficult for the most unskilled and disadvantaged to compete!

Real Story on Minimum Wage Is that Union Bosses Are Intentionally Harming Teenagers

The Wall Street Journal rightfully complains about government-imposed minimum wage laws, which are causing higher levels of teenage unemployment. But an underappreciated aspect of this story is the role of union bosses. The unions are big advocates of higher minimum wages, ostensibly because they want to help the working poor, but the real reason is that unions want to somehow acheive above-market wages for their members, and it is difficult to achieve that goal if employers have other options. But if unions can increase the cost of hiriing other workers – or if they can price them out of the market with minimum-wage laws, then that helps the union bosses negotiate favorable deals. Regardless, the real victims are the hundreds of thousands of teenagers who are now jobless, as the WSJ explains:

Yesterday’s September labor market report was lousy by any measure, with 263,000 lost jobs and the jobless rate climbing to 9.8%. But for one group of Americans it was especially awful: the least skilled, especially young workers. Washington will deny the reality, and the media won’t make the connection, but one reason for these job losses is the rising minimum wage. Earlier this year, economist David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, wrote on these pages that the 70-cent-an-hour increase in the minimum wage would cost some 300,000 jobs. Sure enough, the mandated increase to $7.25 took effect in July, and right on cue the August and September jobless numbers confirm the rapid disappearance of jobs for teenagers. The September teen unemployment rate hit 25.9%, the highest rate since World War II and up from 23.8% in July. Some 330,000 teen jobs have vanished in two months. Hardest hit of all: black male teens, whose unemployment rate shot up to a catastrophic 50.4%. It was merely a terrible 39.2% in July. The biggest explanation is of course the bad economy. But it’s precisely when the economy is down and businesses are slashing costs that raising the minimum wage is so destructive to job creation. …The current Congress has spent billions of dollars—including $1.5 billion in the stimulus bill—on summer youth employment programs and job training. Yet the jobless numbers suggest that the minimum wage destroyed far more jobs than the government programs helped to create. Congress and the Obama Administration simply ignore the economic consensus that has long linked higher minimum wages with higher unemployment. Two years ago Mr. Neumark and William Wascher, a Federal Reserve economist, reviewed more than 100 academic studies on the impact of the minimum wage. They found “overwhelming” evidence that the least skilled and the young suffer a loss of employment when the minimum wage is increased. …State lawmakers are also at fault. At least 10 states have raised their minimum wages above the federal level in the last decade, largely in response to union lobbying and in the name of helping the working poor. Four states with among the highest wage rates are California, Massachusetts, Michigan and New York. Studies have shown in each case that their wage policies killed jobs for teens. The Massachusetts teen employment rate sank by one-third when the minimum wage rose by 88% between 1995 and 2008.

Sincerely,

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

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