My name is Everette Hatcher III. I am a businessman in Little Rock and have been living in Bryant since 1993. My wife Jill and I have four kids (Rett 24, Hunter 22, Murphey 16, and Wilson 14).
At the risk of understatement, I am not a fan of the Internal Revenue Service. But, as shown in this closing segment from a recent interview, I get especially outraged when IRS bureaucrats engage in criminal behavior and nobody cares.
This should outrage everyone that we have officials at a powerful agency illegally leaking confidential information.
My daughter’s dogs even registered their disapproval during the interview (I’m dog sitting for a few days).
We don’t know how many IRS bureaucrats were involved, and we also don’t know whether the motive was money, ideology, or partisanship.
A few months ago, the Wall Street Journaleditorialized about this latest scandal.
Democrats want to give $80 billion to the Internal Revenue Service to audit millions of Americans each year. Yet…after the progressive website ProPublica first published the secret tax information of rich Americans, the tax agency still can’t explain what happened.…IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig…promised when the leak occurred…to find out what happened, but in September he told Senators, “We do not yet have any information concerning the source.” Since then it’s been crickets. …The leak is a crime, but tracing it isn’t merely a matter of criminal enforcement. The breach highlights the general failure of the IRS to protect taxpayer data. …As troubling is the limp response by the IRS. A separate GAO report this May found that the tax agency failed even to enforce its own authentication protocols, which would help to detect breaches when they occur. …The new money for the IRS is harmful on its own terms, but it’s all the worse when it is provided without strings to an agency that has no idea who is stealing private tax data.
Amen.
Hopefully Republicans won’t be stupid (again) and go along with big budget increases for the corrupt IRS bureaucracy.
By the way, ProPublica this morning published a new story based on their stolen data.
Written by Paul Kiel, it claims rich people pay a very low tax rate.
If your company’s stock shoots up and you grow $1 billion richer, that increase in wealth is real. …From 2014 to 2018,the 25 wealthiest Americans grew about $400 billion richer, according to Forbes. To an economist, this was income, but under tax law, it was mere vapor, irrelevant. And so this group, including the likes of Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett, paid federal income taxes of about 3.4% on the $400 billion, ProPublica reported. We called this the group’s “True Tax Rate.”
There are two points worth making after reading this nonsense.
The new version of this claim, as illustrated by the ProPublica excerpt, is that the rich have a low tax rate because they aren’t hit with a tax when their assets increase in value. But that’s because an increase in wealth is not an increase in income, just as a decrease in wealth isn’t a loss of income.
If ProPublica wants to add a wealth tax on top of the current income tax, they should be honest and openly make that argument.
Instead, they opted to concoct and disseminate a make-believe tax rate.
The takeaway is that the IRS budget should not be increased, period. And it definitely should not be increased because that would reward criminal bureaucrats.
Narrated by Hiwa Alaghebandian of the American Enterprise Institute, the mini-documentary explains how needless complexity creates an added burden – sort of like a hidden tax that we pay for the supposed privilege of paying taxes.
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The Onerous Compliance Cost of the Internal Revenue Code
The tax system is a complicated nightmare that forces taxpayers to devote ever-larger amounts of time, money, energy, and other resources in hopes of complying with the internal revenue code and avoiding IRS persecution. This CF&P Foundation video shows that this corrupt mess is the result of 97 years of social engineering and industrial policy that began almost immediately after that dark day in 1913 that the income tax was created. www.freedomandprosperity.org
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Two things from the video are worth highlighting.
First, we should make sure to put most of the blame on Congress. As Ms. Alaghebandian notes, the IRS is in the unenviable position of trying to enforce Byzantine tax laws. Yes, there are examples of grotesque IRS abuse, but even the most angelic group of bureaucrats would have a hard time overseeing 70,000-plus pages of laws and regulations (by contrast, the Hong Kong flat tax, which has been in place for more than 60 years, requires less than 200 pages).
Second, we should remember that compliance costs are just the tip of the iceberg. The video also briefly mentions three other costs.
The budgetary burden of the IRS, which is a staggering $12.5 billion. This is the money we spend to employ an army of tax bureaucrats that is larger than the CIA and FBI combined.
There are three things animals don’t do that humans do:
Animals don’t blush. Mark Twain once wryly observed, “Man’s the only animal who can blush—or needs to.”
Animals don’t cry.
And animals don’t laugh.
This tells me that man, made in the image of God, reflects the character of God. And God is a God of joy.
Laughter is a gift from God. There’s nothing wrong with laughter. As a matter of fact, laughter comes innately. You don’t have to teach children to laugh; you have to teach children when not to laugh. And if you really have the joy of the Lord in your heart, it’s going to show up on your face.
PRACTICE THIS:
Does your face today reflect the joy of the Lord? Or something else? Nehemiah 8:10 says “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Decide today that you’re going to choose joy rather than fear or despair. Memorize Psalm 16:11— “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
The Republican-controlled legislature in Kentuckyvoted Wednesday to override Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of legislation that would prohibit transgender athletes from competing in sex-segregated sporting events from sixth grade through college.
The expected move came after Beshear refused to sign Senate Bill 83 last week and claimed it was most likely unconstitutional. He said the legislation “discriminates against transgender people” and therefore would not hold up in court.
Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky on July 29, 2019. (Photo By Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)
The measure is now law in the state after the Republicans overrode the veto of the legislation, which originally passed through the state House with a 70 to 23 vote and the state Senate with a 26 to 9 vote.
Under the new law, a student’s gender will be determined by the “biological sex” indicated on the student’s certified birth certificate “as originally issued at the time of birth or adoption.” This means individuals who transitioned to female later in life could not participate on sports teams designated female in the state.
Republican Sen. Robby Mills, the bill’s lead sponsor, has said the measure would ensure girls and women compete against other “biological females.”
Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky, speaks during a news conference in Frankfort, Kentucky, U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022. (Jon Cherry/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Mills has said the bill reflects concerns from parents across the Bluegrass State. He said it “thinks ahead” to prevent situations where girls or women are unfairly competing against biological males.
“It would be crushing for a young lady to train her whole career to have it end up competing against a biological male in the state tournament or state finals,” Mills said during a previous debate on the bill.
In vetoing the measure, Beshear said its backers had failed to present a “single instance” in Kentucky of someone gaining a competitive advantage as a result of a “sex reassignment.”
A car is seen at driving by the Capitol Building on January 16, 2021 in Frankfort, Kentucky. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
“Transgender children deserve public officials’ efforts to demonstrate that they are valued members of our communities through compassion, kindness and empathy, even if not understanding,” the governor wrote.
The measure also faced criticism from others in the state.
“This bill is a solution in search of a non-existent problem,” said Samuel Crankshaw, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky. “It is rooted in hate and unconstitutional.”
Fox News’ Timothy H.J. Nerozzi and The Associated Press contributed to this article.
A Proclamation on Transgender Day Of Visibility, 2022
In the past year, hundreds of anti-transgender bills in States were proposed across America, most of them targeting transgender kids. The onslaught has continued this year. These bills are wrong. Efforts to criminalize supportive medical care for transgender kids, to ban transgender children from playing sports, and to outlaw discussing LGBTQI+ people in schools undermine their humanity and corrode our Nation’s values. Studies have shown that these political attacks are damaging to the mental health and well-being of transgender youth, putting children and their families at greater risk of bullying and discrimination.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research.
“Identifying” as someone who one is not has become all the rage. If you think you’re somebody you’re not, the whole world is expected to nod its collective head, if not stand up and cheer.
This is especially true for gender identity, as William “Lia” Thomas has demonstrated so vividly in collegiate swimming pools. Unheralded male swimmer William Thomas became NCAA champion female swimmer Lia Thomas—Shazam!—just by saying so.
What a cool magic trick.
Gone are the days when a guy had to put some skin in the game to pull this off. Or, more accurately, pull something off to get some skin out of the game; namely, his penis. The old carving-station requirement for gender transition has gone the way of the rotary telephone. Today, mere affirmations will suffice.
“Hey, I’m a girl!” And you are.
As Yogi Berra might say, if he were alive and not in shock: “Only in America.”
Since simple declarations of identity can change people more swiftly than scalpels, what’s next after the triumph of transgenderism?
Why not transnationalism?
Visualize Lupita Martinez. She lives in poverty in Honduras. The mean streets of Tegucigalpa keep her at wits’ end. A crime surge on public transportation is the last macaw that breaks the branch of her patience.
So, Martinez joins a caravan and heads north, to the U.S.-Mexican frontier.
When she comes face to face with a Border Patrol agent, Martinez says the magic words: “I identify as an American.”
“Welcome home, Lupita!” the federal agent says with a warm smile, as he waves this Honduran American citizen back where she belongs.
And why not transracialism?
Picture Ludwig Von Thannhausen, age 18. He lives in suburban Chicago with his native German parents who brought him to America as a baby. He has blond hair, blue eyes, and looks like a young man born in Oberpfaffenhofen who also happens to be white.
But Von Thannhausen can’t get enough of things black.
He is obsessed with the Harlem Renaissance. He knows the literature of Langston Hughes better than Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the paintings of Aaron Douglas more than Max Ernst, and the music of Duke Ellington deeper than Richard Wagner.
His heroes stretch from Frederick Douglass to the Tuskegee Airmen to Denzel Washington. He listens to everything from Motown to Parliament Funkadelic to Prince to Kanye West.
He dreams of majoring in black studies at Howard University in Washington, D.C., a historically black college. In fact, he’s applying as a black student and seeks scholarships intended for black applicants.
Von Thannhausen resembles a recruit for the Aryan Nation, but he said the secret words: “I identify as black.”
Who are we to disagree? If that’s his identity, that’s his identity.
And if his good grades, decent SAT scores, and impressive baseball record land him a spot at Howard, plus a $50,000 minority scholarship, then who are we to say that he is not really black?
But what would we say to the kid who actually is black (you know: dark skin, dark hair, etc.), applies to Howard, and misses out on admission, a scholarship, or both? If not for Von Thannhausen, those blessings would be hers.
Why not transindividualism?
Imagine that Bob Glenwood has multiple-personality disorder. He identifies as Bob Glenwood, but also as Steve Jones, Myron Shapiro, Jackie Washington, and Concepcion Gomez.
So, he fills out five voter registration applications and requests five absentee ballots.
Who are we to say that Glenwood deserves just one ballot? How dare we disenfranchise the other four people who live inside his brain? That would be Jim Crow 3.0.
As these (for now) fictional scenarios show, America will plunge into ever deeper chaos if we simply let people “identify” as those they are not and then deprive others of goods and benefits meant for people who legitimately embody those identities.
I identify as Walter Cronkite, and that’s the way it is.
The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
Female swimmers (from left) Emma Weyant, Erica Sullivan, and Brooke Forde place behind Lia Thomas (left), the biologically male transgender swimmer who won the NCAA Division 1 women’s 500-yard freestyle on Thursday. (Photo: Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
Concerned Women for America filed a formal civil rights complaint against the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday, contending the school is violating Title IX requirements designed to protect the rights of female student athletes.
The complaint came the same day transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological male, won the 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA’s Division 1 Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships in Atlanta. Thomas is set to compete in the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyles today and tomorrow.
Thomas, who had previously competed on the men’s team, has been dominating women’s competitions and shattering records since switching to the women’s team in 2020.
“Thomas is anatomically and biologically a male with physical capacities that are different from anatomically and biologically female athletes, which extends an unfair advantage and strips female student athletes of opportunities afforded to them by law,” according to a statement from Concerned Women for America, a Christian conservative public policy organization.
The complaint cites federal Title IX requirements for schools to provide equal educational opportunities, including in athletics, to receive federal funding.
“The future of women’s sports is at risk, and the equal rights of female athletes are being infringed,” said Penny Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America. “Any school that defies federal civil rights law by denying women equal opportunities in athletic programs, forcing women to compete against athletes who are biologically male, must be held accountable.”
Jay Richards, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, expressed support for Concerned Women for America’s complaint against the University of Pennsylvania. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
“The case of Lia (formerly Will) Thomas at the University of Pennsylvania is a highly visible example of how gender ideology is already wreaking havoc in our schools,” Richards said. “And it’s clearly a violation of the spirit and letter of Title IX. I just hope that courts have the courage to recognize that. If justice is to be served, then CWA should prevail.”
Before I show the clip from AFTER LIFE let me show you how inconsistent humanists can be with this article below. Humanist claim to be the biggest supporters of women’s rights!!
Last week, the American Humanist Association (AHA) stripped British author Richard Dawkins of his 1996 Humanist of the Year award after he made a comment on Twitter that offended some in the transgender community.
“Regrettably, Richard Dawkins has over the past several years accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values,” said the AHA. “His latest statement implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient.”
This is nonsense: Dawkins had raised a point that it is perfectly worthy of discussion, in accordance with the rationalist philosophy of the humanist movement. But it would also have been ridiculous for the organization to punish Dawkins even if the remark had been offensive, given that many of its past awardees have espoused controversial views, and even said insensitive things on Twitter.
Here was Dawkins’ tweet, which concerned Rachel Dolezal, a chapter president of the NAACP who engendered controversy for identifying as black even though she was a white woman:
If it’s disqualifying to express confusion about progressives’ simultaneous embrace of transgender people and vehement rejection of transracial people, I suppose that I will never win a Humanist of the Year award. I wrote the following in my 2019 book, Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump:
If we accept, as many on the left do, that people can identify as female even though they were born male, why is it unthinkable for people to identify as black when they were born white? How can the left embrace transgender people without even considering the possibility that there could be transracial people? (Race, after all, is more obviously socially constructed than gender. While our conception of gender is at least partly based on biologicaldifferences between the sexes, the same is not true for race.)
The point is not to demean transgender people, but to question why people like Dolezal instantly warranted pariah status. Dawkins subsequently clarified that it was not his intention “to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue.”
But according to the AHA, this clarification evinced “neither sensitivity nor sincerity.” Dawkins’ name is no longer listed on the website’s awardees page.
Perusing this page reveals something interesting: There are far more controversial past winners than Dawkins. The AHA gave Humanist of the Year awards to the author and activist Alice Walker—who promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories—and also to Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood who promoted eugenics and white supremacy. Sanger’s legacy is so complicated that her own organization is currently disowning her.
The AHA has also given lesser awards to several individuals with a history of provocative statements and bad tweets: Jessica Valenti, Cenk Uygur, and others. To be clear, the AHA is within its rights to give or rescind awards to anyone it wishes, for any reason. But people who support the organization’s mission have the same right to criticize it for hypocrisy.
Two such critics are Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Pinker, who won the Humanist of the Year award in 2011 and 2006, respectively. Goldstein and Pinker wrote an open letter to the AHA calling on it to reverse course:
Dawkins did not call for discrimination against or marginalization of any individual or group. And he explicitly denied any intention to disparage anyone or to lend support to transphobic or racist political movements. Now, it would still be completely appropriate for those of you who objected to the substance of his tweets to criticize them in The Humanist or other forums, explaining the nature of their objections. But to seek to punish, dishonor, or humiliate a writer rather than engage with his words is a betrayal of humanism.
The Humanist Manifesto III declares that “the lifestance of humanism [is] guided by reason.” Since no one is infallible, reason requires that a diverse range of ideas be expressed and debated openly, including ones that some people find unfamiliar or uncomfortable. To demonize a writer rather than address the writer’s arguments is a confession that one has no rational response to them.
This illiberal response is all the more damaging to an organization that claims to repudiate the repressive practices of religion. It has not been lost on commentators that an association of “freethinkers” has deemed certain thoughts unthinkable, nor that it is enforcing dogmas and catechisms by excommunicating a heretic. The AHA is turning itself into a laughingstock.
Goldstein and Pinker are quite right. The AHA’s own values require tolerance of difficult conversations around public policy subjects, rather than a knee-jerk drive to punish dissenters from orthodoxies.
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After Life #1 Trailer
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I listened tothis question and answer session at Harvard in 1992 on cassette tapes and was captivated with Ravi Zacharias. His responses were so much better than Kath’s responses to Tony in AFTER LIFE. I have referenced work by Ravi many times in the past and Especially moving was Ravi’s own spiritual search which started in a hospital bed after a failed suicide attempt.I also want you to check out his talk at Princeton and the question and answer time afterwards which are both on YOU TUBEat these two links: Link for talk, Link for Q/A.
After Life 2 Trailer
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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If Death is the end then what is the point Kath asks below:
Adrian Rogers (September 12, 1931 – November 15, 2005)
Charles Darwin Autobiography
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Francis Schaeffer “The Age of NONREASON”
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(Above) Tony and Anne on the bench at the graveyard where their spouses are buried.
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July 9, 2020 Ricky Gervais
Dear Ricky,
This is the 83rd day in a row that I have written another open letter to you to comment on some of your episodes of AFTER LIFE, and then I wanted to pass along some evidence that indicates the Bible is historically accurate from Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop Book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?
In the 6th episode of the second season of AFTERLIFE Tony and Lenny interview a 50 year old person who pretends to be a 8 year old little girl when everyone in his family knows this person has been around for 50 years.
Just pretending something is true does not make it true. This was true too for Jean Paul Sartre. The atheist Sartre said that this Godless universe has no meaning but “Let’s pretend the universe has meaning.” But this is just fooling ourselves.
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Let me share a portion of an article by William Lane Craig with you.
Why on atheism life has no ultimate meaning, value, or purpose, and why this view is unlivable.
Francis Schaeffer has explained this point well. Modern man, says Schaeffer, resides in a two-story universe. In the lower story is the finite world without God; here life is absurd, as we have seen. In the upper story are meaning, value, and purpose. Now modern man lives in the lower story because he believes there is no God. But he cannot live happily in such an absurd world; therefore, he continually makes leaps of faith into the upper story to affirm meaning, value, and purpose, even though he has no right to, since he does not believe in God.
Let’s look again, then, at each of the three areas in which we saw life was absurd without God, to show how man cannot live consistently and happily with his atheism.
Meaning of Life
First, the area of meaning. We saw that without God, life has no meaning. Yet philosophers continue to live as though life does have meaning. For example, Sartre argued that one may create meaning for his life by freely choosing to follow a certain course of action. Sartre himself chose Marxism.
Now this is utterly inconsistent. It is inconsistent to say life is objectively absurd and then to say one may create meaning for his life. If life is really absurd, then man is trapped in the lower story. To try to create meaning in life represents a leap to the upper story. But Sartre has no basis for this leap. Without God, there can be no objective meaning in life. Sartre’s program is actually an exercise in self-delusion. Sartre is really saying, “Let’s pretend the universe has meaning.” And this is just fooling ourselves.
The point is this: if God does not exist, then life is objectively meaningless; but man cannot live consistently and happily knowing that life is meaningless; so in order to be happy he pretends life has meaning. But this is, of course, entirely inconsistent—for without God, man and the universe are without any real significance.
Value of Life
Turn now to the problem of value. Here is where the most blatant inconsistencies occur. First of all, atheistic humanists are totally inconsistent in affirming the traditional values of love and brotherhood. Camus has been rightly criticized for inconsistently holding both to the absurdity of life and the ethics of human love and brotherhood. The two are logically incompatible. Bertrand Russell, too, was inconsistent. For though he was an atheist, he was an outspoken social critic, denouncing war and restrictions on sexual freedom. Russell admitted that he could not live as though ethical values were simply a matter of personal taste, and that he therefore found his own views “incredible.” “I do not know the solution,” he confessed.” [7] The point is that if there is no God, then objective right and wrong cannot exist. As Dostoyevsky said, “All things are permitted.”
But Dostoyevsky also showed that man cannot live this way. He cannot live as though it is perfectly all right for soldiers to slaughter innocent children. He cannot live as though it is all right for dictators like Pol Pot to exterminate millions of their own countrymen. Everything in him cries out to say these acts are wrong—really wrong. But if there is no God, he cannot. So he makes a leap of faith and affirms values anyway. And when he does so, he reveals the inadequacy of a world without God.
The horror of a world devoid of value was brought home to me with new intensity a few years ago as I viewed a BBC television documentary called “The Gathering.” It concerned the reunion of survivors of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, where they rediscovered lost friendships and shared their experiences. One woman prisoner, a nurse, told of how she was made the gynecologist at Auschwitz. She observed that pregnant women were grouped together by the soldiers under the direction of Dr. Mengele and housed in the same barracks. Some time passed, and she noted that she no longer saw any of these women. She made inquiries. “Where are the pregnant women who were housed in that barracks?” “Haven’t you heard?” came the reply. “Dr. Mengele used them for vivisection.”
Another woman told of how Mengele had bound up her breasts so that she could not suckle her infant. The doctor wanted to learn how long an infant could survive without nourishment. Desperately this poor woman tried to keep her baby alive by giving it pieces of bread soaked in coffee, but to no avail. Each day the baby lost weight, a fact that was eagerly monitored by Dr. Mengele. A nurse then came secretly to this woman and told her, “I have arranged a way for you to get out of here, but you cannot take your baby with you. I have brought a morphine injection that you can give to your child to end its life.” When the woman protested, the nurse was insistent: “Look, your baby is going to die anyway. At least save yourself.” And so this mother took the life of her own baby. Dr. Mengele was furious when he learned of it because he had lost his experimental specimen, and he searched among the dead to find the baby’s discarded corpse so that he could have one last weighing.
My heart was torn by these stories. One rabbi who survived the camp summed it up well when he said that at Auschwitz it was as though there existed a world in which all the Ten Commandments were reversed. Mankind had never seen such a hell.
And yet, if God does not exist, then in a sense, our world is Auschwitz: there is no absolute right and wrong; all things are permitted. But no atheist, no agnostic, can live consistently with such a view. Nietzsche himself, who proclaimed the necessity of living beyond good and evil, broke with his mentor Richard Wagner precisely over the issue of the composer’s anti-Semitism and strident German nationalism. Similarly Sartre, writing in the aftermath of the Second World War, condemned anti-Semitism, declaring that a doctrine that leads to extermination is not merely an opinion or matter of personal taste, of equal value with its opposite. [8] In his important essay “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” Sartre struggles vainly to elude the contradiction between his denial of divinely pre-established values and his urgent desire to affirm the value of human persons. Like Russell, he could not live with the implications of his own denial of ethical absolutes.
A second problem is that if God does not exist and there is no immortality, then all the evil acts of men go unpunished and all the sacrifices of good men go unrewarded. But who can live with such a view? Richard Wurmbrand, who has been tortured for his faith in communist prisons, says,
The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The communist torturers often said, ‘There is no God, no Hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.’ I have heard one torturer even say, ‘I thank God, in whom I don’t believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.’ He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners. [9]
And the same applies to acts of self-sacrifice. A number of years ago, a terrible mid-winter air disaster occurred in which a plane leaving the Washington, D.C., airport smashed into a bridge spanning the Potomac River, plunging its passengers into the icy waters. As the rescue helicopters came, attention was focused on one man who again and again pushed the dangling rope ladder to other passengers rather than be pulled to safety himself. Six times he passed the ladder by. When they came again, he was gone. He had freely given his life that others might live. The whole nation turned its eyes to this man in respect and admiration for the selfless and good act he had performed. And yet, if the atheist is right, that man was not noble—he did the stupidest thing possible. He should have gone for the ladder first, pushed others away if necessary in order to survive. But to die for others he did not even know, to give up all the brief existence he would ever have—what for? For the atheist there can be no reason. And yet the atheist, like the rest of us, instinctively reacts with praise for this man’s selfless action. Indeed, one will probably never find an atheist who lives consistently with his system. For a universe without moral accountability and devoid of value is unimaginably terrible.
The Success of Biblical Christianity
But if atheism fails in this regard, what about biblical Christianity? According to the Christian world view, God does exist, and man’s life does not end at the grave. In the resurrection body man may enjoy eternal life and fellowship with God. Biblical Christianity therefore provides the two conditions necessary for a meaningful, valuable, and purposeful life for man: God and immortality. Because of this, we can live consistently and happily. Thus, biblical Christianity succeeds precisely where atheism breaks down.
Conclusion
Now I want to make it clear that I have not yet shown biblical Christianity to be true. But what I have done is clearly spell out the alternatives. If God does not exist, then life is futile. If the God of the Bible does exist, then life is meaningful. Only the second of these two alternatives enables us to live happily and consistently. Therefore, it seems to me that even if the evidence for these two options were absolutely equal, a rational person ought to choose biblical Christianity. It seems to me positively irrational to prefer death, futility, and destruction to life, meaningfulness, and happiness. As Pascal said, we have nothing to lose and infinity to gain.
[1]Kai Nielsen, “Why Should I Be Moral?” American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984): 90.
[3]H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (New York: Berkeley, 1957), chap. 11.
[4]W.E. Hocking, Types of Philosophy (New York: Scribner’s, 1959), 27.
[5]Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Gay Science,” in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. W. Kaufmann (New York: Viking, 1954), 95.
[6]Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in Why I Am Not a Christian, ed. P. Edwards (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1957), 107.
[7]Bertrand Russell, Letter to the Observer, 6 October, 1957.
[8]Jean Paul Sartre, “Portrait of the Antisemite,” in Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Satre, rev. ed., ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: New Meridian Library, 1975), p. 330.
[10]Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1959), 2:360-1.
[11]Loyal D. Rue, “The Saving Grace of Noble Lies,” address to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, February, 1991.
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This reminds me of an illustration from Francis Schaeffer of what existentialism means:
When we speak of irrationalism or existentialism or the existential methodology, we are pointing to a quite simple idea. It may have been expressed in a variety of complicated ways by philosophers, but it is not a difficult concept. Imagine that you are at the movies watching a suspense film. As the story unfolds, the tension increases until finally the hero is trapped in some impossible situation and everyone is groaning inwardly, wondering how he is going to get out of the mess. The suspense is heightened by the knowledge (of the audience, not the hero) that help is on the way in the form of the good guys. The only question is: will the good guys arrive in time? Now imagine for a moment that the audience is slipped the information that there are no good guys, that the situation of the hero is not just desperate, but completely hopeless. Obviously, the first thing that would happen is that the suspense would be gone. You and the entire audience would simply be waiting for the axe to fall. If the hero faced the end with courage, this would be morally edifying, but the situation itself would be tragic. If, however, the hero acted as if help were around the corner and kept buoying himself up with this thought (“Someone is on the way!” – “Help is at hand!”), all you could feel for him would be pity. It would be a means to keep hope alive within a hopeless situation. The hero’s hope would change nothing on the outside; it would be unable to manufacture, out of nothing, good guys coming to the rescue. All it would achieve would the hero’s own mental state of hopefulness rather than hopelessness. The hopefulness itself would rest on a lie or an illusion and thus, viewed objectively, would be finally absurd. And if the hero really knew what the situation was, but consciously used the falsehood to buoy up his feelings and go whistling along, we would either say, “Poor guy!” or “He’s a fool.” It is this kind of conscious deceit that someone like Woody Allen has looked full in the face and will have none of. Now this is what the existential methodology is about. If the universe we are living in is what the materialistic humanists say it is, then with our reason (when we stop to think about it) we could find absolutely no way to have meaning or morality or hope or beauty. This would plunge us into despair. We would have to take seriously the challenge of Albert Camus (1913-1960) in the first sentence of The Myth of Sisyphus: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”92 Why stay alive in an absurd universe? Ah! But that is not where we stop. We say to ourselves – “There is hope!” (even though there is no help). “We shall overcome!” (even though nothing is more certain than that we shall be destroyed, both individually at death and cosmically with the end of all conscious life). This is what confronts us on all sides today: the modern irrationalism.
Francis Schaeffer has correctly argued:
The universe was created by an infinite personal God and He brought it into existence by spoken word and made man in His own image. When man tries to reduce [philosophically in a materialistic point of view] himself to less than this [less than being made in the image of God] he will always fail and he will always be willing to make these impossible leaps into the area of nonreason even though they don’t give an answer simply because that isn’t what he is. He himself testifies that this infinite personal God, the God of the Old and New Testament is there.
Instead of making a leap into the area of nonreason the better choice would be to investigate the claims that the Bible is a historically accurate book and that God created the universe and reached out to humankind with the Bible. Below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer concerning the accuracy of the Bible.
TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?)
We now take a jump back in time to the middle of the ninth century before Christ, that is, about 850 B.C. Most people have heard of Jezebel. She was the wife of Ahab, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. Her wickedness has become so proverbial that we talk about someone as a “Jezebel.” She urged her husband to have Naboth killed, simply because Ahab had expressed his liking for a piece of land owned by Naboth, who would not sell it. The Bible tells us also that she introduced into Israel the worship of her homeland, the Baal worship of Tyre. This led to the opposition of Elijah the Prophet and to the famous conflict on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the priests of Baal.
Here again one finds archaeological confirmations of what the Bible says. Take for example: “As for the other events of Ahab’s reign, including all he did, the palace he built and inlaid with ivory, and the cities he fortified, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?” (I Kings 22:39).
This is a very brief reference in the Bible to events which must have taken a long time: building projects which probably spanned decades. Archaeological excavations at the site of Samaria, the capital, reveal something of the former splendor of the royal citadel. Remnants of the “ivory house” were found and attracted special attention (Palestinian Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem). This appears to have been a treasure pavilion in which the walls and furnishings had been adorned with colored ivory work set with inlays giving a brilliant too, with the denunciations revealed by the prophet Amos:
“I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished,” declares the Lord. (Amos 3:15)
Other archaeological confirmation exists for the time of Ahab. Excavations at Hazor and Megiddo have given evidence of the the extent of fortifications carried out by Ahab. At Megiddo, in particular, Ahab’s works were very extensive including a large series of stables formerly assigned to Solomon’s time.
On the political front, Ahab had to contend with danger from the Aramacaus king of Syria who besieged Samaria, Ahab’s capital. Ben-hadad’s existence is attested by a stela (a column with writing on it) which has been discovered with his name written on it (Melquart Stela, Aleppo Museum, Syria). Again, a detail of history given in the Bible is shown to be correct.
This brings me to the message of Solomon in ECCLESIASTES and below are comments by Francis Schaeffer:
Ecclesiastes 9:7-12
7 Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.
8 Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.
9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, (DOES IT SOUND OPTIMISTIC? NOW COMES THE BACKLASH) all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.
11 Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.12 For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.
Solomon when at work takes off his hat and he stands by the grave of man and he says, “ALAS. ALAS. ALAS.”
But interestingly enough the story of Ecclesiastes does not end its message here because in two places in the New Testament it is picked up and carried along and put in its proper perspective.
Luke 12:16-21
16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax,eat, drink, be merry.”’ [ALMOST EVERYONE WHO HAS PROCEEDED HERE HAS FELT CERTAINLY THAT JESUS IS DELIBERATELY REFERRING TO SOLOMON’S SOLUTION.]20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Christ here points out the reason for the failure of the logic that is involved. He points out why it fails in logic and then why it fails in reality. This view of Solomon must end in failure philosophically and also in emotional desperation.
We are not made to live in the shortened environment of UNDER THE SUN in this life only!!! Neither are we made to live only in the environment of a bare concept of afterlife [ignoring trying to make this life better]. We are made to live in the environment of a God who exists and who is the judge. This is the difference and that is what Jesus is setting forth here.
I Corinthians 15:32
32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
There is no doubt here he is reaching back to Solomon again and he is just saying if there isn’t a resurrection of the dead then let’s just follow Solomon and let’s just eat and drink for tomorrow we die!!!! If there isn’t this full structure [including the resurrection of the dead] then just have the courage to follow Solomon and we can eat and drink because tomorrow we die and that is all we have. If the full structure isn’t there then pick up the cup and drink it dry! You can say it a different way in the 20th century: If the full structure is not there then go ahead and be an EXISTENTIALIST, but don’t cheat. Drink the cup to the end. Drink it dry! That is what Paul says. Paul the educated man. Paul the man who knew his Greek philosophy. Paul the man who understood Solomon and the dilemma. Paul said it one way or the other. There is no room for a middle ground. IF CHRISTIANS AREN’T RAISED FROM THE DEAD THEN SOLOMON IS RIGHT IN ECCLESIASTES, BUT ONLY THEN. But if he is right then you should accept all of Solomon’s despair and his conclusions.
Seen below is the third episode of AFTERLIFE (season 1) when Matt takes Tony to a comedy club with front row seats to cheer him up but it turns into disaster!!!
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit|Comments (0)
I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events |Tagged Bible Prophecy, john macarthur | Edit|Comments (0)
Prophecy–The Biblical Prophesy About Tyre.mp4 Uploaded by TruthIsLife7 on Dec 5, 2010 A short summary of the prophecy about Tyre and it’s precise fulfillment. Go to this link and watch the whole series for the amazing fulfillment from secular sources. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvt4mDZUefo________________ John MacArthur on the amazing fulfilled prophecy on Tyre and how it was fulfilled […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (1)
John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 1) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
Adrian Rogers – How you can be certain the Bible is the word of God Great article by Adrian Rogers. What evidence is there that the Bible is in fact God’s Word? I want to give you five reasons to affirm the Bible is the Word of God. First, I believe the Bible is the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Biblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (0)
Is there any evidence the Bible is true? Articles By PleaseConvinceMe Apologetics Radio The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy Jim Wallace A Simple Litmus Test There are many ways to verify the reliability of scripture from both internal evidences of transmission and agreement, to external confirmation through archeology and science. But perhaps the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology, Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit|Comments (0)
Here is some very convincing evidence that points to the view that the Bible is historically accurate. Archaeological and External Evidence for the Bible Archeology consistently confirms the Bible! Archaeology and the Old Testament Ebla tablets—discovered in 1970s in Northern Syria. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | E
Proverbs 14:34 says, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”
When it comes to politics, some believers have dropped out: either discouraged by the worldliness or intimidated by the great debate between church and state. Others, in their misguided zeal, have turned their churches into precincts and used our government to wage holy war against the nonbelievers. At this crucial time in our nation, we need to confess our sins, turn from our wicked ways, and understand what the Word of God says about government.
The Bible teaches us that God has ordained human government. Daniel 2:21 says,“And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings…”Whether they be wicked or righteous, our government leaders are given authority by God, alone. By and large, nations receive the kind of government they deserve.
The Word of God also states that government serves two basic purposes: to restrain evil and to encourage good. Though it is impossible to legislate morality, the government is an instrument of God to legislate against immorality.
The Word of God teaches the responsibilities of the church to the government, and vice versa. Respectfully, we do not want the government infringing upon our religious affairs. Likewise, as Christian citizens, we have a civic duty to pray for our government leaders, pay our taxes, and express patriotism. When the government does what is right, we should let them know. We are also instructed to speak up when the government does wrong. We must use our votes to speak up for what is godly and righteous; when we don’t participate, we disobey the Lord.
Finally, the Bible claims there will come a time when we may have to disobey our government. In Acts, the apostles were told not to preach the Gospel, but they did anyway. In the Book of Daniel, Daniel was commanded by the government not to pray, but he did anyway. As Jesus instructed us in Matthew 22:21, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, but not the things that are God’s.
Adrian Rogers says, “The only authority the government has is that which is granted ultimately by Almighty God; we ought to obey God rather than man.”
Apply it to your life
It’s not too late for America; one by one, we must get right with God; sing it, pray it and mean it: God bless America.
Richard Dawkins on Carl Sagan, Einstein and Religion | A How To Academy …
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Francis Schaeffer the Founder of the L’Abri community
The Cosmos Is All That Is
Francis Schaeffer wrote in 1981 in CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO chapter 3 The Destruction of Faith and Freedom:
Then there was a shift into materialistic science based on a philosophic change to the materialistic concept of final reality. This shift was based on no addition to the facts known. It was a choice, in faith, to see things that way. No clearer expression of this could be given than Carl Sagan’s arrogant statement on public television–made without any scientific proof for the statement–to 140 million viewers: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever was or ever will be.” He opened the series, COSMOS, with this essentially creedal declaration and went on to build every subsequent conclusion upon it.
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 6 | The Scientific Age
We’re looking at day five in the Creation, (1 Genesis 20-23). (1 Genesis 20-23). The text says, “Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth and the open expanse of the heavens.” And God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good and God blessed them saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters and the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning the fifth day.
We are in day five as the text indicates. We have day by day gone through Creation week with some amazing, amazing insights given to us by the word of God. One of the things that continues to strike me as I read more and more, what happens in a series like this pretty typically, is once I start a series all of you out there who are trying to help me start sending me things: books, email, faxes, stuff off the internet until my library swells beyond comprehension. And I have been reading, trying to read as much as I can possibly read and the more I read the more interested I become. And I just have to kind of unload some of it on you.
The thing that continues to strike me in my reading, because I really have never spent a large part of my life studying science; I took in college whatever was required and not once ounce of science beyond that, and managed to forget most of what I learned. But I am now sort of reintroduced to the amazing diversity and complexity of the created order. Those are the two words that stick in my mind: the diversity and the complexity of the created order, which speaks to me of the immensity of God’s intelligence. It is staggering how, as you begin to look at the Creation with any kind of thought, any kind of depth, you come face-to-face with the immensity of the intelligence and power of God. And it continues to amaze me as I read evolutionists that want to deny God, to see the utter folly of their conclusions – the utter hopelessness of it.
December 1996 brought the death of an evolutionist and astronomer named Carl Sagan, probably the most well-known astronomer in the world. His perception was that life just sort of happened and he ended up his life with absolute emptiness – absolute hopelessness. And near the end of his life he was interviewed by Ted Koppel on television. Koppel asked Sagan, realizing he was at the end of his life, that he had spent his life in science studying the universe as an astronomer, he said, “Do you, sir, have any words of wisdom for the people of the world?” To which Sagan replied, and I quote, “We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400-plus-billion other stars that make up the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe, which may be one of a large number – perhaps an infinite number – of other universes. That is well worth pondering.” End quote.
He thought about it and he thought about it and he thought about it and he never let God be a reality. In the end, the most brilliant evolutionist only knows that the universe exists. He doesn’t know how, he doesn’t know why, and mostly he doesn’t know who the creator is. How sad. Everything in the universe points to God, the Creator. Even Albert Einstein said, “Of course there is a massive intelligence behind the universe. A man is a fool who doesn’t believe that,” and then went on to say, “But we could never know him.” The humanistic evolutionist refuses to see what is obvious, refuses to meet the God who wants to be known.
Back to the created order itself. Again, the complexity and diversity leave you with no other possible explanation than divine intelligence and divine power of proportions beyond our comprehension. I just pick out little pieces of the created order that speak to this complexity and diversity and share a few of them with you. Some birds navigate by the stars when migrating. How do they know how to do that? In fact, birds raised from eggs inside a building where they have never seen the sky can orient themselves toward home when shown an artificial sky representing a place they’ve never been.
Moths have two ears. Mites, little microscopic bugs, like to live in a moth’s ear. But interestingly enough, mites occupy only one ear of a moth. If mites get in both ears, the moth can’t fly, so scientists find mites only in one ear. How do the mites know that one ear is occupied? And then the fascinating Bombardier beetle has two chemicals in his little body which mix perfectly and at the right moment combine outside his body. When they’re fired and they intersect, they explode in the face of the enemy. That’s why they’re called Bombardier beetles. However, the two chemicals that create an explosion outside the body, never combine prematurely to blow up the beetle. And by the way, how did the beetle evolve those explosives and keep them separate?
The University of Alberta, Canada, once showed that in that temperate climate there are an average of 1,800 storms in operation at any time, and that those 1,800 storms in operation at any time expend energy at the inconceivable figure of one billion, three hundred million horsepower. Where does that come from? A Canadian physicist said a rain of four inches over an area of 10,000 square miles would require the burning of 640 million tons of coal to evaporate enough water for such a rain. And to cool again the vapors and collect them in clouds would take another 800 million horsepower of refrigeration working 24 hours a day for 100 days. And yet God, by the massive power of the sun evaporates the water, refrigerates it in the sky, and sends it back down again as water. By the way, the average farmer in Minnesota is provided, free of charge, 407,510 gallons of water per acre per year by that process if the annual rainfall of 24 inches is occurring. Where does all this power come from?
The U.S. Natural Museum says there are over 10 million different species of insects. There are 2,500 kinds of ants. I know, they were all at your last picnic. One colony of ants can have as many as 100 million ants. How do those little tiny things have such a reproductive system? Some have estimated there are five billion birds in America. Mallards can fly 60 miles an hour, eagles can fly 100 miles an hour, and falcons can dive at 180 miles an hour. By the way, codfish, not that you need to know, can lay nine million eggs and herring only 70,000. I don’t have any other comment, just that is enough to stagger me. Nine million eggs? Nine million little codfish? That’s why there’s so many fish-and-chips places in England. They never run out of that stuff.
The Earth is 25,000 miles in circumference, weighs 6,586 sextillion tons, hangs in empty space, spins at 1,000 miles an hour with perfect balance. And that’s important, so you’re not just jumping every time the Earth moves. At the same time that it’s spinning at 1,000 miles an hour, it is moving through space around the sun at 1,000 miles a minute in an orbit of 580 million miles. It does so at a perfect angle set to create the seasons, which provide all the crops which feed its inhabitants. Comet heads can be from 10,000 miles to one million miles long and the tails can be 100 million miles long. They travel at 350 miles per second. Your heart, about the size of your fist, weighs less than half a pound, pumps 1,800-plus gallons of blood a day, does enough work in 12 hours to lift 65 tons off the ground.
Did you know that the sun burns up – this is staggering – four million tons of matter per second? Consider things that are very small, like the atom. They’re not visible. We know they exist, but to this day they’re not visible. Atoms are so small it takes three atoms to make up one water molecule, and if you were to take every water molecule in one drop of water and blow them up so that each molecule was the size of a grain of sand – this is one water molecule. If you were to take every molecule in one drop of water and blow it up the size of a grain of sand, you would have enough grains of sand to make a road one foot thick, one-half mile wide that would go from L.A. to New York City. That’s how many molecules in a drop of water and there’s three atoms in every molecule. And yet the atom is mostly empty space. The actual material in the atom takes up only one trillionth of the atoms volume and when atoms combine they only join together at their outer electron orbit, that’s all. What makes matter seem solid are the motions within the atoms.
This is not really solid. Everything is mostly empty space. If the average person had all the space squeezed out of them – that’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? If the average person had all the space squeezed out of it, how much volume do you think you’d occupy? If you had all the space squeezed out of you, you’d be lost on the head of a pin for you could only occupy 1/100,000,000 of a cubic inch. So when somebody comes along and says you’re nothing, they’re right. But on the other side you see you’re thinking diet, I know. You’re thinking there’s got to be a way to make this work. But I want you to know a full cubic inch of that material would weigh a billion pounds. A teaspoon full of water contains a million billion trillion atoms. I mean it’s just staggering, isn’t it? Did this all happen by accident? Come on.
Let me talk about the wheel of life. This fascinates me. I mentioned this morning who invented the wheel and somebody said, “The Mayans did.” No, the Mayans didn’t, God did. There’s a wheel of life. You’ve got them all through you. The wheel that I’m talking about, the wheel of life – scientists call it the wheel of life – is found in the enzyme ATP synthase. Its structure has only recently been elucidated. It’s won a joint Nobel Prize in 1997 for two scientists, Paul Boyer of the USA and John Walker of the U.K. The wheel in this enzyme rotates at about 100 revolutions per second. This miniature motor is 200,000 times smaller than a pinhead and it’s revolving 100 revolutions per second. Every cell in your body and every cell in every living thing has thousands of these motors. Every cell in every living thing has thousands of these motors in just one cell. Someone estimated that your body has 10 quadrillion little motors. Let me tell you what the little motor does.
The ATP motor’s job is to make the molecule adenosine triphosphate, ATP, from adenosine diphosphate, ADP, and phosphoric acid a synthesis which requires an input of energy. The ATP can then break down into ADP again giving up the energy by coupling itself to another chemical process within the cell which requires the energy in order to react. So energy is directed and the products are recycled constantly, constantly, in that little tiny motor, of which you have 10 quadrillion going on all the time. Says Dr. Walker, “We require our body weight in ATP every day.” So those little motors have to reproduce your entire body weight every day. We’re turning over that amount of ATP, cycling that energy, to keep ourselves thinking and walking around, doing whatever we do. If we have a lazy day, we’ll only use about half our body weight of ATP and if we work hard, up to one ton of ATP is recycled in a day. In 1993, Professor Boyer deduced by indirect means how ATP was produced, but it was left to Dr. Walker in 1994 to provide the first detailed picture of how the motor works. He used x-rays and an electron microscope to take an atomic snapshot. And then some Japanese fellow came along in 1997 with a tiny fluorescent filament attached to the electron microscope so that the motor could be seen spinning under the microscope.
These extremely complex little spinning motors are brilliantly designed. Each motor is built from 31 separate proteins, and remember this is 200,000 times smaller than the head of a pin and they have 31 protein components that are made from thousands of precisely-arranged amino acids. Am I losing you? It gets worse. This thing goes on paragraph after paragraph after paragraph. These little machines are producing with every turn of the wheel at some 100 revolutions per second. They are producing the necessary energy cycle to keep you alive and keep you functioning. “It’s incredible,” says Dr. Walker, “to think of these motors of life spinning around in all the cells of our bodies and they are spinning in all the cells of everything that lives.” Who designed these little wheel motors? Who energized them?
(Psalm 139:14) says, “We were fearfully and wonderfully made.” Now my friend, R.C. Sproul, is part theologian and part philosopher and I appreciate him for his theology, but I really appreciate him for his philosophy. He is actually – he is actually a funny philosopher because he can make people look so foolish that you can hardly help but chuckle. Sproul says there are only four options for the origin of the universe. You only have four. Option number one, the universe is an illusion. It doesn’t exist. That’s option number one. Option number two, it is self-created. Option number three, is it self-existent and eternal. Option number four, it was created by someone who is self-existent. Sproul says there aren’t any other options. Either it doesn’t exist or it created itself, or it always existed or somebody created it. That’s it. He says, “I have puzzled over this for decades and sought the counsel of philosophers, theologians and scientists. I have been unable to locate any other theoretical options that cannot be subsumed under these four options.” That’s all you’ve got. Then Sproul says, “Option number one must be eliminated for two reasons.” That’s the option that says it doesn’t exist, it’s all an illusion.
“First, if it’s a false illusion then it isn’t an illusion. If it’s a true illusion, then someone or something must be existing to have that illusion. If this is the case, then that which is having the illusion must either be self-created, self-existent or caused by someone ultimately self-existent, so therefore everything is not an illusion.” Secondly, he says you can eliminate number one, the illusion theory, because if we assume the illusion is absolute – that is, nothing does exist including that which is having the illusion – then there is no question of origins even to answer because literally nothing exists. But if something exists, then whatever exists must either be self-created, self-existent, or created by someone who is self-existent.
Let’s look at option two, that the universe created itself. Well this is, by all logic, formally false. It is contradictory and logically impossible. Sproul says, “In essence, self-creation requires the existence of something before it exists.” You get that? You can’t create yourself unless you exist to create yourself. “Self-creation is a logical and rational impossibility,” he writes. “For something to create itself, it must be before it is.” This is impossible. It’s impossible for solids, liquids and gases. It’s impossible for atoms and subatomic particles. It is impossible for light. It is impossible for heat. It is impossible for God. Nothing anywhere, anytime can create itself because if it could it would have to exist before it created itself. Sproul points out that an entity can be self-existent and not violate logic, but it can’t be self-created. When scientists say, “Well, 15 to 20 billion years ago the universe created itself,” what are they saying? They’re saying nothing exploded into something. That is a logical impossibility. To retain a theory of self-creation is totally irrational and rejects all logic. Such a theory can be believed, but it can’t be argued reasonably.
Then you’ve got option number three, that the universe, as it exists, as we know it, has always existed eternally. Well that doesn’t fly. You’re not eternal and neither am I. We didn’t always exist. There was a time when we didn’t exist. There was a time when our children didn’t exist. There are all kinds of things in this world that once did not exist. In fact, everything around us once did not exist. How could the universe exist forever and then do in time, i.e. create life, what it had never done forever. If the universe always existed, then everything in it always existed, and we know everything in it didn’t always exist because you and I didn’t always exist. Our parents will verify that. We cannot be born and be always existing. Cars and watches and chairs, all that, were brought into existence at some point in time.
Option one, option two, option three are impossible. We’re left with only one possibility. The universe exists because it was created by someone who existed before it existed, a preexisting, intelligent power, namely God. Matter can’t create itself. Only an eternal, preexisting God could create it. I was encouraged this week. CNN reported that only nine percent of Americans believe that life arose purely by chance. That’s good, isn’t it? But the vast majority can flip the figures over. Over 90 percent of the people in America believe that God was involved in creation, but that God used evolution as His method. We’ve been trying to point out to you that that can’t be how God created because evolution is what? Impossible. Absolutely impossible. That’s why there’s no evidence for it, because it can’t happen. The sin of evolutionists is described in (1 Romans). “The wrath of God,” verse 18, “is revealed from heaven against all un-Godliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” The truth of the Creator God is obvious. It’s absolutely obvious, reasonable, logical, but they suppress the truth. Verse 19, “That which is known about God is evident within them for God made it evident to them by reason, by logic, by cause and effect. It is apparent, since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power, His divine nature, have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made.”
You cannot conclude anything other than that there was an eternal, preexisting creator. That is the only reasonable conclusion, and consequently those who reject that and suppress that truth, (Romans 120) says, “Are without excuse.” Without excuse, even though they knew God. I mean there’s no other possible, reasonable conclusion. They refuse to honor him as God, refuse to think and became empty in their speculations, their foolish heart is darkened. They think they’re wise. They have all their Ph.D’s and all of that, but they are actually fools. They exchange the glory of the incorruptible God into the image of a corruptible man, birds, four-footed animals, crawling creatures. They worship the creature more than the creator. They make the creature the creator. Life creates itself. (1 Romans), “They worship the creation. They see the creation as the life force which creates.” Logically ridiculous as we noted a moment ago. How did the universe come into existence? Let’s go back to chapter one of Genesis and go back to where we’ve been all along. It came into existence exactly the way it’s described in the opening chapter of the Bible, which is inspired by God, which is true and inerrant and infallible. The truth of origins is clearly given here in six 24-hour – nearly 24-hour – solar days, six days defined as an evening and a morning or a period of darkness and a period of light. Six normal days. In six days, God created the entire universe the way it is now.
We’ve been showing you through this study that that was about six or seven thousand years ago and that is all. And when you look and you say what about all the strata and what about the appearance of age and all of that, the answer is God created everything old, everything mature. And the flood also, which occurs later on, changes the face and the configuration of the earth and answers a lot of the questions that are brought up with regard to topography and sedimentary rock and fossils and all of that. But the Bible is very clear, God created it all in six days. Now day one, God created the material and light. Day two, the seas and the heavens. Day three, the earth and vegetation and day four, the lights – the luminaries – the moon, the stars and the sun. Now we come to day five, and I just read it to you. It has to do with God creating all the creatures that populate the seas and the skies. This is the day when God completes the home for man and He creates the first living beings; the first living beings. Verse 20, “Swarms of living creatures.” That is the first time anything is said to be living. Plants aren’t so designated. They are organisms that have a kind of life, but it is not a conscious life. The first living beings created by God came on day five. I’ll just remind you, if you’re looking at the sequence, day five corresponds to day two as day four corresponded to day one. On day one, God created the light. On day four he created the stellar bodies to be the light givers. On day two He created the seas and the heavens and on day five Je populated the seas and the heavens.
On day three, He created the earth and its vegetation, corresponding with on day six He created the animals and man to populate the earth and to consume its vegetation, so the parallels run consistently through. The sea and the sky on day two and the inhabitants of the sea and the sky on day five. The sea was given, of course, its final form on day three, but it was created on day two. Now as we look at the text here, there are two phases to the day five creation. First phase, the creation of conscious life, secondly the creation of reproductive life. Two things are clearly identified for us. Conscious life that’s living creatures who are conscious, that is they react to their environment and they move around from place to place. Plants do not, obviously. And secondly, reproductive life. Verse 20, let’s pick it up at the text. “Then God said,” and I’ll stop you there again. Always the method of creation, God speaks non-existing things into existence. He speaks them into existence out of nothing.
“Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures.” So he first of all filled the waters. Now in the Hebrew, this is what is called a paronomasia, which is a term describing a kind of literary device. A paronomasia is basically this. The Hebrew says, “Let the waters” – the text says, “Let the waters swarm with swarming things.” It’s a repetition. It’s the same in verse 11, “Let the earth sprout vegetation.” Actually, in the Hebrew is, “Let the earth vegetate with vegetation.” And here it’s, “Let the waters swarm with swarming things.” Swarm with swarming, living things actually or swarm with swarming things that live. Swarm is the word chosen here because it has the idea of movement, and I remind you that the distinctiveness of living creatures is that they move. Plants are not called living creatures because they aren’t mobile. They don’t move. Living creatures move. In fact, He filled the seas so that the verb here is to swarm. And again, it pictures a large population of these creatures in motion. Again, Cassuto, the Jewish commentator, writes, “The primary significance of the stem, sheretsin Hebrew, is movement with specific reference to the abundant, swift movement of many creatures who jostle one another as they proceed to crisscross in all possible directions. God willed that into the midst of the waste an inanimate waters from one end of the sea to the other. There should now enter a living being and that there should be born in their midst moving animate beings subject to no limitation of numbers or intermission of movement.
The sea began to just swarm with all these living creatures swimming everywhere and that would include – the seas would include the freshwater as well; all the waters of the earth. The term living is that very familiar Hebrew word nephesh, which speaks of soul or being or life. It’s used here for the very first time. This is the first time we really have a living creature that moves on its own. Plants have no such life in the sense that creatures do because plants can’t move and they are not conscious. Living things are conscious, though animals are not self-conscious. That is they are conscious. They respond to their environment as individuals, but they are not aware of that response. It is purely a mechanism that we call instinct. They are not self-conscious, they do not know they are alive. They do not know they are dead. They do not know one another. They do not communicate with one another in personal, self-conscious ways, although instinctively they are under tremendous control by the DNA codes that have been given to them for the preservation of their species and the function of their species as God as designed it. But they are distinguished from plants by the word nephesh. Literally, nephesh means “that which breathes.” That which breathes.
These beings are wayibārā. That is to say they are created, and here He uses bārā, the word for create. This is an epic-making achievement that demands the verb “to create.” As a monumental thing takes place, He creates conscious beings that can move and they move through the sea in swarms; such a massive amount of created beings. Now that is to say, and I stop you here because this is a very important thing. When God created the fish and all those mammals and all those animals, whether you’re talking about fish or whether you’re talking about whales or whether you’re talking about sea-going dinosaurs or whether you’re talking about eels or whether you’re talking about plankton or whatever anywhere in the food chain, when God created all of that there was no evolutionary process. He literally, in a moment, spoke into existence all the creatures that swim. Just instantaneously, at the same moment on the same day, they all came into existence. They were not somehow in a process of development as species evolved into other species and mutated into other species.
They were all instantaneously created in massive swarms moving through the seas. Verse 20 indicates the same thing, “Let the birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.” Of course He doesn’t talk about swarming because there wasn’t such a dense creation of birds. We know that today. If you look in the depths of the sea where it hasn’t been polluted significantly, you will find an almost uncountable and limitless amount of life. And you look into the air, and of course there are less birds. So you find here that it doesn’t use the word “swarming.” “Let the birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of heaven.” They are free to fly, literally in the Hebrew, on the face of heaven. That’s a wonderful picture because you could translate it they fly in front of heaven, as if heaven were all the way out, heaven were all the way up into the very limitless ends of the eternity of space that God has made and the great expanse of heaven. And the birds that are flying around the globe don’t go very far. They just kind of fly what appears to us to be the surface of the vast heaven behind or on the face of heaven; in front of heaven with the great heaven behind them.
And then I think this is quite fascinating. “And God,” verse 21, “created the great sea monsters.” Why did it mention those? You know, when it mentions the creation of plants and trees it didn’t mention apple trees or oak trees. It didn’t mention any particular kind of plant. Why here? Just birds and just swarms of living creatures that swim in the seas, fish and more. Why bring up great sea monsters? Why introduce them? There are a lot of other things in the sea. Why them? I find that fascinating. The Hebrew word is tannin. And you know, there’s a reason for this. If you study the Old Testament, you find several Old Testament references to sea creatures. There’s Leviathan. Remember reading about Leviathan? Leviathan is this massive, massive, powerful sea creature. (41 Job), God says to Job, “Where were you?” He says, “Where were you when I created everything?” Then he comes to chapter 41 and He says, “Can you put your hooks in and control Leviathan?” Some people, I think, have described this massive beast, fierce. You can read (41 Job) yourself and read the characteristics of this beast. I wrote a little note on it. Some have described it as an alligator or a crocodile, but they’re not in the sea as such. The best guess is that he’s describing some kind of dinosaur, some kind of massive seagoing monster, Leviathan.
There’s also mention in the Old Testament of the fleeing serpent, the twisting serpent. (7 Job 12) the serpent of the sea or the sea serpent. There is Rehab, and it refers to massive seagoing animals, very likely refers to dinosaurs. But why does He mention this? Why does he bring it up? I think the answer can be found in this. In ancient mythology, for example in Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent area east of Israel and the Land of Canaan as well – the countries of the East generally – there have always been these very bizarre and very highly-complex fabricated legends about sea monsters. The ancient pagans believed that the gods were sea monsters. Even the Philistines had a god, Dagon, who’s half man/half fish. So the ancients saw these, perhaps these great, fierce sea monsters as the deities, the gods. They wrote epics about them. Some of them, for example, you read about in some of the Ugaritic, which is a different language, Ugaritic epics with regard to the enemies of Baal. The enemies of Baal took the form, one form was this god, Mot, who was called the Lord of the Sea. He was a great sea monster. This began to influence that whole part of the world where they saw the sea monsters as gods, the sea monsters as gods in rebellion against the good gods. In the case of Israel, the gods in rebellion against the good God.
(27 Isaiah 1) you have mention of these sea gods who were so much a part of Canaanite culture. When the children of Israel came to the Land of Canaan, they came across this Canaanite poetry, Canaanite legends about the gods taking on the form of these great sea monsters. So the sea monster then became a picture of the principal of evil, the anti-god evil was sort of personified in the great sea monster, the great dragon of the sea, the great dinosaurs of the sea. A number of versus, as I said then, refer to Leviathan, the great sea monster always seemingly depicted as the great enemies of the true God, implying they were somehow a supernatural deity or supernatural force that rose up against their creator. That was all in the ancient epics. That would have been in existence of the minds of the people at the time of Moses when he wrote Genesis. The Jews had been apparently influenced by these pagan myths, which were ridiculous and foolish, and just in a marvelous way, the spirit of God prompts Moses in recording the inspired account of creation that came to Moses from God to write down and God created the sea monster.
They aren’t false gods, they aren’t false deities, they aren’t symbols of evil. They’re creatures that God made just the way He made all of the rest. And God created the great sea monsters along with every living creature that moves with which the waters swarmed after their kind and every winged bird after its kind and God saw that it was what? And that includes the sea monsters. So much for all that mythology. The Old Testament is opposed to such foolish myths and voices its protest in its own quiet way, doesn’t it? So God created the great sea monsters and God saw that it was good. It’s as if the Torah said far be it from anyone to suppose that the sea monsters are some mythological forces of evil, some divine gods or demigods in opposition to the true and living God and revolt against the true and living God. They are as natural as anything else God created and they were formed in their proper time and their proper place by the word of the Creator in order to fulfill His will. He made them because He wanted to make them and he looked at them and He said they are good.
That’s why it says in Psalms, “Praise the Lord from the earth you sea monsters and all deeps.” The poet in the Psalms is inviting all created forms of life to praise the Lord – all of them. That’s Psalm, I think, 148:7. It just puts that little note in there to dispel all of the bizarre mythology. God created, in verse 21, the sea monsters, every living creature that moves, which with the waters swarmed after their kind and every winged bird after its kind. Just a note: “after its kind” is used twice. God created everything that lives in the water at the same time on the same day. He created everything that flies in the air at the same time on the same day, and He created them after their kind. There is no evolution of species from kind to kind to kind to kind. He created them after their kind. All the species were created by God. There can be variation within the species, but there’s no moving outside that DNA, that information encoded in each species.
Henry Morris says, “The first introduction of animal life was not a fragile blog of protoplasm that happened to come together in response to electrical discharges over a primeval ocean as evolutionists believe.” God just made it all in its kind. Everything that lives in the sea, everything that lives in the sky, God created the way it is in its own species. By the way, there couldn’t be any progress, any mutation, any natural selection, because God saw it all and it was good and there was no death in the universe at all. There was no death in the world at that time. Nothing died. Nothing died. I suppose we could conclude at that point that animals didn’t eat each other. That’s a moot question in scripture, but it’s a reasonable assumption. That’s why the theologian von Rad once said, “Outside of God, there’s nothing to fear.” The Jews needed to hear that. They didn’t need to fear the imaginary gods of the sea monsters. Von Rad said something profound, “Outside of God, there’s nothing to fear.” There’s only one to be feared. Who’s that? The one that can destroy both soul and body and hell, the New Testament says.
Evil came into the world after creation. Evil came into the world after the creation of sea monsters; huge, massive sea creatures. The whole creation was made by God and was originally good. So day five first brought the creation of conscious life. Secondly, of reproductive life. Reproductive life. This is just – I just – the more I read about this, and I’m not gonna take the time to get into it. You can do your own research. The more I get into reproductive systems, the more incredible it is. I mean it’s enough to imagine human reproduction and how God can do that, but just take that into every species in creation, the most small, tiny, microscopic kind of creation all the way to the largest land mammals and seagoing mammals and dinosaurs, and all of the reproductive processes all encoded in the DNA, all that information put in every single cell of every single creature reproducing its own kind. That’s what it says in verse 22, “And God blessed them saying, “Here’s the blessing.”” He granted them this benefit. The blessing is a benefit. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters and the seas. And let birds multiply on the earth.”
Obviously, the birds don’t fill the heaven above, but they do multiply. Fish tend to fill the waters of the sea. “Be fruitful and multiply.” Be fruitful and multiply is kind of an Old Testament phrase for reproduction. It’s exactly what it means – to reproduce. In (1 Genesis 28) when God is creating man, it says, “God blessed them,” that is male and female, “and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply.”” That was his command for them to procreate. (9 Genesis) “God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them,” Noah and his wife and their sons and their wives, “Be fruitful and multiply and repopulate the earth.” (17 Genesis 16), “I will bless her.” God is talking about Sarah. “I’ll give you a son,” to her and then I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations. Kings of people shall come to her. In verse 20, as for Ishmael, “Behold I will bless him. I will make him fruitful and will multiply him.” To make him fruitful and multiply means reproduction. You find it in (28 Genesis 3), (35 Genesis 9-11), (48 Genesis 3-4). That is a phrase meaning reproduction.
So God gave this created order in the sky and in the sea, reproductive capability. All living creatures are complex machines. I said this long ago in the series. They’re named for a scientist who discovered complexity. It’s called a von Neumann machine after the scientist von Neumann. Wilder Smith writes a whole book on the von Neumann machine. All living organisms characteristically have three properties. They are self-sustaining. That is they have the capability to sustain their own life like those little, tiny, tiny wheels going around inside of you. They are self-sustaining. Secondly, they are self-repairing. That is they fix themselves as they go. And most definitively, they are self-reproducing. A von Neumann machine is self-sustaining or self-perpetuating, self-repairing and self-reproducing. So far we have never, by all of our science, been able to manufacture anything like that. We can’t come up, for example, with a computer that sustains its own life and its own energy, repairs itself and has little computers. We don’t have such a machine and the reason is the complexity of it is too vast. The complexity of it is too complicated. It can’t be done. If we could get something complicated enough to do that, it would be in disrepair all the time. It couldn’t keep up with the self-repairing process.
We can’t create a von Neumann machine, and yet every single cell that exists is just that. This amazing capability, biochemical reproductive systems being placed in every little DNA strip in every cell of every creature, and with that comes the capability to be fruitful and multiply. This is an assurance of permanence. This is an assurance of propagation. It has nothing to do with evolution. Each kind will multiply. Each kind will reproduce its same kind with some slight variation, of course, within the kind. And let birds multiply on the earth. Somebody said, “Well, why does it say on the earth? Birds fly.” Well they fly, but they don’t multiply in the air. They’ve got to go to a nest. That’s where they cohabitate, that’s where they land to mate and hatch their eggs. God knows. There’s no evolution here. Creatures of the sea and the creatures of the sky were all made in one day.
In every single species, the largest legendary sort of fierce sea monsters down to the smallest marine organisms, all made in one day. All the creatures that fly, all made the same day in their species with movement. They move through the air. They move through the sea. And they are conscious. That is to say if you drive your car down the road, isn’t it interesting how the birds avoid it? They have a consciousness, although it is not a self-consciousness. So man’s house is built. It’s now ready for his occupancy and the crown of creation comes on day six. The crown of creation is man. You know what’s so sad, we’ll stop at this point, but what is so sad is that man refuses to see God in creation. Isn’t that sad? Man refuses to see God in creation. He refuses to hear God in conscience, suppresses the truth, plunges into deeper darkness and hopelessness. I’ll tell you what grieves me most of all. What grieves me most of all is people who say they’re Christians, who believe the Bible, and then claim evolution. I’ll say this again. I said it weeks ago. You cannot find evolution in (1 Genesis) anywhere. It’s not there. There’s no way to exegete that chapter and come out with evolution. No way possible. You have to suppress the truth. Why do that? Why would you – why would you affront God or blaspheme God or dishonor God in order to honor a Godless evolutionist; in order to buy some scientific credibility.
We take scripture at its face value, don’t we? I don’t know about you, but I start believing the Bible in (1 Genesis 1). I don’t have to wait until chapter three. Donald Barnhouse once wrote, “God gives man brains to smelt iron and make a hammer,” a hammerhead and nails. “God grows a tree and gives man the strength to cut it down and the brains to fashion a hammer handle from the wood. And when man has the hammer and the nails, God will put out his hand and let man drive nails through it, place him on a cross in the supreme demonstration that men are without excuse.” They rejected the creator to the degree that when he was incarnate they killed him. They killed him. It is a dishonor to God to believe anything other than what Genesis says, right? Does it honor God to believe He made all this? Does it honor God to believe the creation account of Genesis? Does it give Him glory? Is it a proper representation of who He is and what He’s done? And is it a source of worship? Anything less is an affront to God. To make matter self-creating, to make the complex diversity of this created universe the product of chance is to give chance more credit than God, and chance doesn’t even exist. It’s a nonexistent reality. We start worshipping God in (1 Genesis), do we not, when we worship him as creator.
Father, thank you again for tonight as we’ve worked our way through day five and now have the glorious anticipation of that final day of creation, the day You created all the animals and the crown of creation made in your own image – man. We worship You. We adored You. We praise You. We thank You. We glorify You. We honor You as the God of Creation. You’re not only the God of Creation, but the God of Salvation. Einstein was wrong. We can know You because you desire to know us. You’ve made Yourself known to us in your creation and more than that, You’ve made yourself known to us in conscience by the law written in our hearts. Beyond that, You’ve made Yourself known to us in revelation through the scripture and You’ve shown us that You’re not only a God of immensity, a God of immutability who doesn’t change, a God of omniscience and omnipresence and omnipotence, a God of unlimited power and knowledge. You’re a God of vast complexity and vast, vast beauty and order. You are a God that fills an endless and infinite universe and yet you are a God who cares about sinners, who loves sinners, who came into the world and was born in a humble, humble, humble place in an obscure town called Bethlehem, laid in a feed trough, who came all the way down to take the place of sinners, to die on a cross so You might know us and we might know you. Oh, how we rejoice that we know You, the true and living God, the Creator of the universe, and our friend and our redeemer. We thank You. Amen.
German Dadaist and collage artist Hannah Höch’s esteemed career spanned two world wars and most of the 20th century, and by the age of 83, she was ready to reflect. The result was her final, largest photo-collage, Life Portrait (1972-3), comprising 38 sections and measuring nearly four by five feet. It is a self portrait-cum-memoir, alluding to the different periods of Höch’s life and work, while “ironically and poetically commenting on key political, social and artistic events from the previous 50 years.” It also includes imagery of her favoured themes and inspirations (“fashion imagery, news photographs, African art and pictures of plants and animals”) as well as multiple pictures of herself, identifiable by her signature bob haircut. This unique book presents the collage section by section, alongside relevant quotes and explanatory texts by Alma-Elisa Kittner, acting as a brilliant meditation on “Höch’s final masterpiece, and the life’s work it represents”.
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
In this post we are going to see that through the years humanist thought has encouraged artists like Michelangelo to think that the future was extremely bright versus the place today where many artist who hold the humanist and secular worldview are very pessimistic. In contrast to Michelangelo’s DAVID when humanist man thought he […]
_________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel interviews philosopher and scholar Antony Flew on his conversion from atheism to deism. Much of it has to do with intelligent design. Flew was considered one of the most influential and important thinker for atheism during his time before his death […]
The third season of After Life launches on Netflixtoday, bringing the latest comedy project from Ricky Gervais to an emotional conclusion.
The so-called ‘sadcom’ has tackled some heavy themes during its rollercoaster run, which has seen widow Tony Johnson (Gervais) give into self-destructive tendencies as he struggles to come to terms with his wife’s tragic death.
Adding some extra heft to the most dramatic scenes are the music choices, which are usually directly relatable to the difficult situation that Tony finds himself in.
After Life season 3 features a wide range of musical acts, including legendary songwriters Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens, as well as rock bands Radiohead and Death Cab for Cutie.
For any viewers who hear something they like in the last six episodes, we’ve compiled a full list of the licensed songs in After Life season 3, of which the finale has the largest jukebox.
Read on for the full tracklist, while we also have details on the After Life cast and locations for you to peruse at your leisure.
Episode 1
The Things We Do for Love by 10cc
Back to the Beginning by Aaron Espe
Episode 2
Not Dark Yet by Bob Dylan
Who Will Sing Me Lullabies by Kate Rusby
Episode 3
Let Down by Radiohead
Episode 4
The Wind by Cat Stevens
Episode 5
Hammer and Felt by Beneath the Mountain
Episode 6
I Will Follow You Into the Dark – Death Cab for Cutie
Love Is the Answer (Single Version) by England Dan & John Ford Coley
‘Both Sides, Now’ has been covered over a 1000 times since it was first released. Picture: Henry Diltz/Reprise
By Thomas Curtis-Horsfall
Both Sides, Now’ is undoubtedly one of Joni Mitchell’s most beloved songs.
Heart-breaking and at the same time enduringly hopeful, it was the song that ultimately started the career of a once-in-a-generation talent.
It was in fact Joni Mitchell that wrote ‘Both Sides, Now’ at the tender age of just 23, and would be the first hit she wrote.
That was despite the fact that the song was originally released by folk musician Judy Collins in 1967, as Joni wasn’t a recognised performer so instead settled for writing songs for other artists.
Collins would go on to win the Grammy Award in 1969 for Best Folk Performance and ‘Both Sides, Now’ is widely regarded as her signature song, but she gave Joni her due by helping her launch her own career as a musician.
Joni cited Judy Collins as a major influence and was thrilled she chose to record a song she’d written.
Collins continued to support Joni, introducing a then-unknown Mitchell during her set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1966, which she remained grateful for.
What inspired the song?
Joni Mitchell performing on The Johnny Cash Show in 1969. (Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images). Picture: Getty
Joni had been struggling during the period she wrote the lyrics to ‘Both Sides, Now’, as she had recently given birth to a baby girl but was left by the father to bring her daughter up as a single parent.
Not being able to sufficiently provide for her baby as a young, single mother, Joni gave up her daughter for adoption, a distressing experience that remained private for the majority of her career.
After wedding musician Chuck Mitchell in the same year, their marriage would soon dissolve which started a dark period for Joni. Though, it provided the primary source of her inspiration.
Talking about the moment she began to pen her first song, Joni recalled: “I was reading Saul Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King on a plane and early in the book Henderson the Rain King is also up in a plane. He’s on his way to Africa and he looks down and sees these clouds.”
“I put down the book, looked out the window and saw clouds too, and I immediately started writing the song. I had no idea that the song would become as popular as it did.”
When was it released?
Joni Mitchell’s first rendition of ‘Both Sides, Now’ featured on her 1969 album Clouds. Picture: Reprise
The song first hit airwaves when Judy Collins included it on her album Wildflowers in 1967. She would release ‘Both Sides, Now’ as a single the following year.
In 1969, Joni released the song herself on her sophomore album titled Clouds, which was drawn from the lyrics of ‘Both Sides, Now’ itself.
How did it perform in the charts?
Judy Collins’ version made its way to No.8 on the US Billboard Charts, and to No.14 in the UK charts.
Joni’s subsequent rendition would not chart at all, even though it has since become one of the most influential songs she’s ever written.
What is the song’s legacy?
The reputation of ‘Both Sides, Now’ was rejuvenated somewhat after Mitchell re-recorded an orchestral version in 2000 which was mainly comprised of jazz standards.
Singer Nichole Nordeman spoke about the song’s influence on her, saying that it is “the perfect portrait of what it means to understand love when you are young and hopeful and naive, and then again when you are wise and weathered. From both sides.”
“In rather beautiful irony, she recorded the original song in her 20s as a new artist and made it a hit, and then again in her 50s, when she had really lived the lyric. I like it better when older Joni sings it. Full of grit and nicotine and hard living, the regret and tenderness is what makes it more believable the second time around.”
Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page was deeply affected by the song, saying in 1975 that he interpreted the lyrics “now old friends are acting strange, they shake their heads, they say I’ve changed,” as being about celebrities losing all their old friends once they become famous.
Where have I heard the song before?
One of the most notable inclusions of ‘Both Sides, Now’ in film is in Love Actually, during the heart-wrenching scene where Emma Thompson’s character discovers that her husband played by Alan Rickman is having an affair.
Love Actually‘s director Richard Curtis said the song was so moving, “especially by the fact that it was written by a 23-year-old yet is so suitable for a woman who’s had the whole of life’s experience.”
It was also played during the final episode of Season 3 of Ricky Gervais’ Afterlife when he walks into the distance holding his wife’s hand before they both fade.
Collins’ version has featured in Mad Men,You’ve Got Mail, and Steve Jobs.
Has anyone else recorded ‘Both Sides, Now’?
‘Both Sides, Now’ is considered a timeless classic, and is Joni Mitchell’s most covered song with over 1000 other versions recorded.
Dolly Parton even recorded a version with Judy Collins (and Rhonda Vincent) for her covers album, Those Were The Days,in 2005.
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Recently I read the book NO COMPROMISE about the life of Keith Green and I found this about Joni very interesting:
On the first day of May, Keith wrote, “Drum roll . . . we played for Joni Mitchell.” Joni, a top-selling recording artist, was one of Keith’s musical idols. She lived in a rustic area of the Hollywood Hills, and Keith had taken the trouble to find out exactly which house was hers. On this day, Keith and Todd hitchhiked to Jay Leon’s house and on the way noticed Joni’s gate was open. They got Jay and his guitar and the three of them walked back to Joni’s. Keith, of course, had the nerve to knock on her door. There was no answer, so they decided to serenade her house with a song they’d just written. They put their whole heart into it. As they sang the last note, the door opened and there stood Joni Mitchell. To their amazement, she invited them inside. Keith made himself right at home. He sat at Joni’s piano and sang her all the songs he was writing for his album. He even asked her to write the liner notes, and Todd and Jay nearly died of embarrassment. Keith also wrote, “She gave us organic apple juice. It was all such a beautiful dream . . . I wish it never ended. I left a piece of my soul with her.” Probably one of the most surprising things about the afternoon was that, although Joni was at the peak of success, she had some unanswered spiritual questions too. On one hand, Keith already believed the truth was something much deeper than position or possessions. But he also was disappointed. He had such an immense level of love and respect for Joni he figured if she didn’t have the answers, who did? He later wrote: She seems troubled with an inner conflict. I love her. God help her and us all. You are our only salvation. I feel so discontented today. I feel unfulfilled. Searching for something to quench my thirst for fulfillment. In September 1971, the long-sought recording contract finally became a reality. Keith’s first album, with Amos Records, would be called Revelations. The bulk of the songs centered on his philosophy of peace and hope through the unity of mankind. But even the excitement of an album deal didn’t dull the empty ache in Keith’s heart. February 21, 1972 I have been so confused and off the path. Smoking really kills the pain of being lost. Tests, trials, and tribulations.
—
Later Keith found that inner peace and he wrote about it in this song below:
Your Love Broke Through
Song by Keith Green
Like a foolish dreamer, trying to build a highway to the sky All my hopes would come tumbling down, and I never knew just why Until today, when you pulled away the clouds that hung like curtains on my eyes Well I’ve been blind all these wasted years and I thought I was so wise But then you took me by surprise
Like waking up from the longest dream, how real it seemed Until your love broke through I’ve been lost in a fantasy, that blinded me Until your love broke through
All my life I’ve been searching for that crazy missing part And with one touch, you just rolled away the stone that held my heart And now I see that the answer was as easy, as just asking you in And I am so sure I could never doubt your gentle touch again It’s like the power of the wind
When musician Keith Green died in a plane crash on July 28, 1982, the world lost a special man whose heart was aflame with the Gospel message. Before his untimely end, Green took the world on his seven-year spiritual journey. He held back nothing and was consumed with loving Christ and the church.
On October 21, 1953, Keith Green was born into musical talent. His maternal grandfather was a songwriter and his mother studied voice at Carnegie Hall. By five years old, Green played the ukulele and began formal music lessons. He was writing his own music by age 9. Two years later, Green signed with Decca Records. Time magazine called Green a “pre-pubescent dreamboat” who “croons in a voice trembling with conviction.” He was the youngest member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and played on The Jack Benny Show and The Joey Bishop Show. Green was on the cusp of pop music success until he was displaced by another budding teen idol, Donny Osmond.
After a troubled youth, he married singer/songwriter Melody Steiner in 1973. They struggled to financially and spiritually sought after the meaning of life. Growing up in the drug-induced, anti-establishment ‘60s era led them both to reject organized religion and dabble in eastern mysticism.
Green discovered Christ in the mid-70s. As he attended church and delved deeper into the Bible, Green was increasingly troubled by the hypocrisy of Christians. He longed to reach people through his music and drive them back to holiness. With vocals like Cat Stevens and the piano talent of Elton John, Green recorded his first album in 1977, For Him Who Has Ears to Hear on Sparrow Records. The album, produced by Bill Maxwell, was a commercial success. It later earned the No. 5 spot in CCM’s Greatest Albums in Christian Music. Hits like “Your Love Broke Through” (co-written by friend Randy Stonehill) and “You Put This Love in My Heart” encapsulated Green’s relationship with Jesus. It also had 2nd Chapter of Acts’ “Easter Song.” That same year the Greens started Last Days Ministries with a newsletter that reached 22,000 people.
No Compromise came in November of 1978. “Asleep in the Light,” a radio hit, drove home Green’s conviction for the hypocrites in the church. Penning his most confrontational lyrics, he sang: “Jesus rose from the dead / And you can’t even get out of bed.” Green also mourned the lost souls he encountered in Los Angeles in “How Can They Live Without Jesus.”
Green released So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt in 1980. The title track is a light-hearted view of the little things that become obstacles in the Christian walk. He also sang the worshipful “Oh Lord You’re Beautiful” and an ode to laying down his possessions in “Pledge My Head to Heaven.” Green refused to let money be an obstacle in spreading the gospel. His third album sold 200,000 copies, and most of his albums were given away at concerts.
In the book NO COMPROMISE I read these words:
Probably one of the most surprising things about the afternoon was that, although Joni was at the peak of success, she had some unanswered spiritual questions too. On one hand, Keith already believed the truth was something much deeper than position or possessions. But he also was disappointed. He had such an immense level of love and respect for Joni he figured if she didn’t have the answers, who did?
If Keith was here and could sing one song to Joni Mitchell or Tony Johnson I think it would be this one below:
Altar Call
Song by Keith Green
You know I can’t explain to you Really how He does it But He proved Himself to me in such a Holy way Such a complete way That I’d die for that faith and I’d die for that believe Because it is more than a believe He lives in my heart And that’s the only proof The only proof that I can give you Cause He lives in my heart
Most people that knew me before Didn’t know that I could believe something so strong
The Gospel is simpy this: Jesus will forive all your sins If you come to Him humbly Lay down at his feet and say: ‘You’re the Lord And I’ll follow you the rest of my life on earth So that I can have the rest of eternity with You And the Glory of Your Father’
(SONG BEGINS)
Most people don’t find out ‘Till it’s too late That someone has to pay the price
You can pay it your self (Hah!) Or let someone else But who would be that nice
To pay a debt that isn’t his Well I know someone like that And He’s your best friend He really is He really loves you
Most people don’t find out ‘Till they have death That they need another life
You say you’ve heard everything That’s ever been said About the way the truth, the life You say you’ve heard lots of preaching All before So many times
But did you ever open up your door Give Him a chance To prove Himself That He’s real or not
I hope you find out Before it’s too late That there’s really nobody else
You know its breaking his heart The longer you wait Cause You’ve only been lying to yourself
Cause No one believes a thing you say Not even you
You know You’re gonna find out that He’s the way No matter which way you choose But I pray you Find out by His love for you
—-
Ricky Gervais would have us believe that there is no spiritual answers.
The closing scene of After Life Season 3 shows Tony walking away from Tambury Fair with Lisa and their dog Brandy. The married couple hold hands, but Lisa fades away. Shortly after, Brandy disappears. Then, Tony. What’s going on? Have all three passed away?
What does the ending of After Life Season 3 mean?
Luckily, we don’t have to speculate too much, because Gervais himself walked viewers through the ending. In an interview with Digital Spy, the creator explained what was going through his head as he wrote the last scene in Season 3.
“It’s just that life goes on, you know? When we’re all dead and buried, that field’s still there, the Tambury Fair is still going, that tree is still there, and it’s basically said that we all die, but not today,” he said. “That’s what the ending is saying. ‘We all die, but not today’. Enjoy it while you can, life is so finite. Whenever you are born, and whenever you die, it’s all over. So enjoy that bit, that tiny little bit.”
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit|Comments (0)
I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events |Tagged Bible Prophecy, john macarthur | Edit|Comments (0)
Prophecy–The Biblical Prophesy About Tyre.mp4 Uploaded by TruthIsLife7 on Dec 5, 2010 A short summary of the prophecy about Tyre and it’s precise fulfillment. Go to this link and watch the whole series for the amazing fulfillment from secular sources. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvt4mDZUefo________________ John MacArthur on the amazing fulfilled prophecy on Tyre and how it was fulfilled […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (1)
John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 1) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
Adrian Rogers – How you can be certain the Bible is the word of God Great article by Adrian Rogers. What evidence is there that the Bible is in fact God’s Word? I want to give you five reasons to affirm the Bible is the Word of God. First, I believe the Bible is the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Biblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (0)
Is there any evidence the Bible is true? Articles By PleaseConvinceMe Apologetics Radio The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy Jim Wallace A Simple Litmus Test There are many ways to verify the reliability of scripture from both internal evidences of transmission and agreement, to external confirmation through archeology and science. But perhaps the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology, Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit|Comments (0)
Here is some very convincing evidence that points to the view that the Bible is historically accurate. Archaeological and External Evidence for the Bible Archeology consistently confirms the Bible! Archaeology and the Old Testament Ebla tablets—discovered in 1970s in Northern Syria. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | E
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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Ricky Gervais 25/07/2021 Facebook Live at 28:29 mark Ricky answers my question about Sam Harris
These days, our nation is in troubled waters, and the problem is rooted in fathers who fail to accept their responsibility. The Book of Proverbs reveals how to be the father of a wise child.
Proverbs 1:22 says, “How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge.”
When our children are young, they are simple, ignorant, and careless, which is to be expected. However, some children are never taught to grow in wisdom and remain simple in their adulthood. They may have knowledge, but they lack spiritual wisdom and understanding. They are easily led into error, ready to believe anything.
If a child remains naive and has not been led by his father, he becomes a scorner. He defies instruction and despises the good and godly. Because of this, he is destined for destruction.
The scorner’s very hard to reach, but there is still hope for him. If the scorner is not reclaimed, he becomes a fool; the scorner is insolent, but the fool is immovable. The fool rejects wisdom, ridicules righteousness, and rejoices in iniquity. His moral sense has been so perverted, he thinks good is evil and evil is good.
As parents, there are four things we must keep in mind in order to raise wise children.
First, we need to expound truth to our children; saturate them in the Proverbs, emblazon the Ten Commandments into their consciousness, teach them the Beatitudes, that they might learn these simple, basic truths.
Second, expose sin: children need to see the repercussions of sin to understand their weight. We must pull away the veil and show them the ugly truth of sin and its consequences.
We must also expel scorners, as Proverbs 13:20instructs, “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.” We cannot let our young, impressionable children hang around scorners and fools; we must be firm with who we allow them to be friends with.
Finally, we must express love; be gentle fathers, transparent and available.
Adrian Rogers says, “Words can hurt your children more than an open hand and a slap in the face. Love your children and delight in them.”
Apply it to your life
Are you raising your children to be wise or foolish? Remember your instructions from Proverbs: expound truth, expose sin, expel scorners, and express love.
Downloadable Resources
These resources are now available in multiple formats. You can print from either version. The Word version is editable.
The real drivers of economic strength are private investment and private production.
After all, we can’t consume unless we first produce.*
Not everyone agrees with these common-sense observations. The Biden Administration, for instance, claimed the economy would benefit if Congress approved a costly $1.9 trillion “stimulus” plan last year.
Yet we wound up with 4 million fewer jobs than the White House projected. We even wound up with fewer jobs than the Administration estimated if there was no so-called stimulus.
So what did we get for all that money?
Some say we got inflation. In a column for the Hill, Professor Carl Schramm from Syracuse is unimpressed by Biden’s plan. And he’s even less impressed by the left-leaning economists who claimed it is a good idea to increase the burden of government.
Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz rounded up another 16 of the 36 living American Nobel Prize economists to declare, in an open letter, that…there was no threat of inflation. …The Nobelists’ letter showed that those signing had bought Team Biden’s novel argument that its enormous expansion of social welfare programs really was just a different form of infrastructure investment, just like roads and bridges. …The laureates seemed to have overlooked that previous COVID benefits had often exceeded what tens of millions of workers regularly earned and that recipients displaced by COVID were never required to look for other work. While the high priests of economic “science” were cheering on higher federal spending, larger deficits and increased taxes, employers were and are continuing to deal with inflation face-to-face. …The Nobelists assured that we would see a robust recovery because of President Biden’s “active government interventions.” Their presumed authority was used to give credence to the president’s continuously twisting storyline on inflation — that it was “transitory,” good for the economy, a “high-class problem,” Putin’s fault for invading Ukraine, and the greed of oil and food companies… Today’s fashionable goals seem to have displaced the no-nonsense pragmatism that has long characterized economics as a discipline. …Don’t expect a mea culpa from Stiglitz or his coauthors any time soon. …They can be wrong, really wrong, and never pay a price.
The New York Posteditorialized about Biden’s economic missteps and reached similar conclusions.
President Joe Biden loves to blame our sky-high inflation on corporate greed and Vladimir Putin. But a new study from the San Francisco Fed shows it was Biden himself who put America on this grim trajectory. …other advanced economies…haven’t seen anything like the soaring prices now punishing workers across America. Which means that the spike is due to something US-specific, rather than global prevailing conditions. That policy, was, of course, Biden’s signature economic “achievement.” …The damage it did has been massive. …inflation…to 7%… Put in concrete terms, a recent Bloomberg calculation translates this to an added $433 per month in household expenses for 2022. And historic producer price inflation, a shocking 10%, guarantees even more pain ahead.
For what it’s worth, I don’t fully agree with Professor Schramm or the New York Post.
They are basically asserting that Biden’s wasteful spending is responsiblefor today’s grim inflation numbers.
I definitely don’t like Biden’s spending agenda, but I agree with Milton Friedman that it is more accurate to say that inflation is a monetary phenomenon.
First, Friedman also points out that there’s “a long and variable lag” in monetary policy. So it is not easy to predict how quickly (or how severely) Keynesian monetary policy will produce rising prices.
Second, Keynesian deficit spending can lead to Keynesian monetary policy if a central bank feels pressure to help finance deficit spending by buying government bonds (think Argentina).
*Under specific circumstances, Keynesian policy can cause a short-term boost in consumption. For instance, a government can borrow lots of money from overseas lenders and use that money to finance more consumption of things made in places such as China. The net result of that policy, however, is that American indebtedness increases without any increase in national income.
P.S. You can read the letter from the pro-Keynesian economists by clicking here. And you can read a letter signed by sensible economists (including me) by clicking here.
It’s also worth pointing out that Keynesians have been consistently wrong with predicting economic damage during periods of spending restraint.
They were wrong about growth after World War II (and would have been wrong, if they were around at the time, about growth when Harding slashed spending in the early 1920s).
First, his so-called stimulus was approved last year, adding $1.9 trillion to the nation’s fiscal burden. The president and his team claimed it would lead to four million additional jobs, but the net result was a drop in employment compared to the White House’s own projections.
Regarding the third item, the president so far has not been able to convince all Democratic senators to support the scheme. And with the Senate evenly split between the two parties, Biden needs all of their votes to get his plan approved.
The most important part of the statement is that bigger government would “reduce the number of people working, badly misallocate capital, and hobble economic growth.”
Based on research from the Congressional Budget Office, the damage would be enormous, reducing worker compensation by $1.6 trillion over the next ten years.
What about the other issues mentioned in the statement, such as debt and inflation?
It’s not good that debt goes up, of course, but that’s a symptomof the bigger problem, which is government consuming a greater share of the nation’s output.
Also, at the risk of being annoyingly pedantic, I don’t actually think Biden’s budget would increase inflation. That only happensif the Federal Reserve adopts bad monetary policy.
That being said, central banks are more likely to adopt bad monetary policy when politicians are following bad fiscal policy. So the core assertion is correct.
P.S. I don’t know whether to characterize this as absurd, pathetic, addled, or dishonest, but Joe Biden actually claimedhis budget plan has zero cost.
Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race? Co-authored by Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop)
Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.
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______________________
September 6, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view.
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? which can be found on You Tube. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.
Today I want to respond to your letter to me on July 9, 2021. Here it is below:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
July 9, 2021
Mr. Everette Hatcher III
Alexander, AR
Dear Mr. Hatcher,
Thank you for taking your time to share your thoughts on abortion. Hearing from passionate individuals like me inspires me every day, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to your letter
Our country faces many challenges, and the road we will travel together will be one of the most difficult in our history. Despite these tough times, I have never been more optimistic for the future of America. I believe we are better positioned than any country in the world to lead in the 21st century not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example.
As we move forward to address the complex issues of our time, I encourage you to remain an active participant in helping write the next great chapter of the American story. We need your courage and dedication at this critical time, and we must meet this moment together as the United States of America. If we do that, I believe that our best days still lie ahead.
Sincerely
Joe Biden
___________________
I especially noted this from your letter:
Our country faces many challenges, and the road we will travel together will be one of the most difficult in our history. Despite these tough times, I have never been more OPTIMISTIC for the future of America.
President Biden, you have chosen to abandon your Christianity and pursue humanist concerns!! So how can you say humanism has an OPTIMISTIC POINT OF VIew?
H. J. Blackham was the founder of the BRITISH HUMANIST ASSOCIATION and he asserted:
“On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing, and every pretense that it does not is a deceit. If there is a bridge over a gorge which spans only half the distance and ends in mid-air, and if the bridge is crowded with human beings pressing on, one after the other they fall into the abyss. The bridge leads nowhere, and those who are pressing forward to cross it are going nowhere….It does not matter where they think they are going, what preparations for the journey they may have made, how much they may be enjoying it all. The objection merely points out objectively that such a situation is a model of futility“( H. J. Blackham, et al., Objections to Humanism (Riverside, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1967).
I wanted to reach out to because of some of the troubling moral issues coming out of your administration. I recently read this article about the Humanist group that enthusiastically supported you for President:
The group hopes to reach atheists, agnostics and other religiously unaffiliated voters who make up the largest belief group in the Democratic Party.
Materials line a table during a gathering of atheist, humanist and secular leaders in Temecula, California, for the first SoCal Secular Leadership Summit, which was held from March 1-3, 2019. Photo courtesy Heather AdamsSeptember 28, 2020By Jack JenkinsShareTweetShare
(RNS) — A new group is launching an effort to court nonreligious voters for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, hoping to mobilize a fast-growing — and deeply liberal — community to benefit Democrats in November.
The “Humanists for Biden” group, a project of the Secular Democrats of America, unveiled its plans on Monday (Sept. 28). The group is chaired by Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“The humanist and nonreligious community is poised to be a very significant part of this presidential election in that we represent maybe 30% or so of Democratic voters,” Epstein told Religion News Service.
The group also announced a slate of co-chairs that includes Sarah Levin, who also co-chaired the Democratic National Convention’s Interfaith Council and heads Secular Strategies, an organization that mobilizes secular voters.
“Humanists for Biden marks the first time representatives of the nation’s growing number of secular Americans have been invited to participate in a coalition of communities of faith and conscience, working together on a Presidential campaign,” read a press release from the group. “The Biden-Harris campaign is working to create the most inclusive campaign and administration in the history of American politics, and we are honored to take part in this effort.”
Epstein said Humanists for Biden hopes to reach a broad swath of atheists, agnostics and other religiously unaffiliated voters who make up the largest belief group in the Democratic Party, constituting around 28% of its members, according to political scientist Ryan Burge.
While some are atheists and agnostics, other unaffiliated Americans still believe in God or pray regularly, according to a 2019 Pew Research study.
Even so, Epstein argued that the many nonreligious Americans are united by “humanistic values,” such as a belief in science as “the best tool that we have to create a healthy world,” as well as support for racial justice, pluralism and inclusion.
“We stand as humanists and people united by humanistic values for basic human decency, empathy and compassion that we feel that the Biden-Harris campaign represents far more than its competition,” he said.
Religiously unaffiliated voters, despite backing Democrats over Republicans in the 2018 midterms 75% to 22% according to Pew, have been criticized in the past for relatively low turnout on Election Day compared to other groups.
But Epstein pointed to new research that suggests religiously unaffiliated turnout is heavily impacted by the fact that it is largely made up of young voters who are also known for underperforming on Election Day.
What’s more, he said the group can only benefit from targeted mobilization, something Democrats have rarely done in the past.
“With a group like that that supports you so strongly and leans so heavily in your direction, you want to mobilize that group as much as possible,” he said.
Humanists for Biden is not officially part of the presidential campaign, but Epstein said campaign staff — including national faith outreach directors for both the Biden-Harris campaign and the Democratic Party — are slated to appear at the group’s first official event on Thursday.
“We feel supported and valued, and that has absolutely never been the case before for our community at this level,” he said, adding that Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat and humanist, will also speak at their upcoming event.
The group has even selected a swing state where it can target its efforts: Arizona, where around 27% of the population is unaffiliated, according to Pew.
Epstein pointed out that Arizona is home to lawmakers such as Athena Salman, a state House member who identifies as an atheist and as a humanist. The state is also represented by Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat and the only U.S. Senator who identifies as religiously unaffiliated.
The ultimate goal of the initiative, Epstein insisted, was not only to generate “historic turnout” among secular and nonreligious Americans, but also to build a stronger coalition with religious liberals.
“We recognize that their deeply held religious values resonate strongly with our humanist values,” he said. “We simply want to be a part of the conversation. We want to be in the tent. We want to be able to fully help as equals.”
Francis Schaeffer in CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO shows how today’s secular religion of humanism is now the most influential in the world today:
CHAPTER 4 THE HUMANIST RELIGION (Page 445)
The humanists have openly told us their views of final reality. The Humanist Manifesto I (1933), page 8 says
Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created. Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any super-natural or cosmic guarantees of human values.
And Carl Sagan indoctrinated millions of unsuspecting viewers with this humanistic final view of reality in the public television show Cosmos: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” The humanist view has infiltrated every level of society.
If we are going to join the battle in a way that has any hope of effectiveness – with Christians truly being salt and the light in our culture and our society – then we must do battle on the entire front. We must not finally even battle on the front for freedom, and specifically not only our freedom. It must be on the basis of Truth. Not just religious truths, but the Truth of what the final reality is. It is impersonal material or is it the living God?
(page 445)
The HUMANIST MANIFESTO I and II both state that humanism is a religion, a faith. [Manifesto I: pages 3 and 7; Manifesto II: pages 13 and 24.] Manifesto I, page 9, very correctly says: “Nothing human is alien to the religious.” Christians of all people should have known, taught, and acted on this. Religion touches all of thought and all of life. And these two religions, Christianity and humanism , stand over against each other as totalities.
The HUMANIST MANIFESTOS not only say that humanism is a religion, but the Supreme Court has declared it to be a religion. The 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins specifically defines secular humanism as a religion equivalent to theistic and other non theistic religions.
On page 19 the HUMANIST MANIFESTO II says: “It [the state] should not favor any particular religious bodies through the use of public monies…” Ironically, it is the humanist religion which the government and courts in the United States favor over all others!
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Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband. Now after presenting the secular approach of Nat Hentoff I wanted to make some comments concerning our shared Christian faith. I respect you for putting your faith in Christ for your eternal life. I am pleading to you on the basis of the Bible to please review your religious views concerning abortion. It was the Bible that caused the abolition movement of the 1800’s and it also was the basis for Martin Luther King’s movement for civil rights and it also is the basis for recognizing the unborn children.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine […]
ABORTION – THE SILENT SCREAM 1 / Extended, High-Resolution Version (with permission from APF). Republished with Permission from Roy Tidwell of American Portrait Films as long as the following credits are shown: VHS/DVDs Available American Portrait Films Call 1-800-736-4567 http://www.amport.com The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Unjust laws exist. Shall we […]
I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet. (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on April 16, 2011. First you will see my letter to him which was mailed around April 9th(although […]
ABORTION – THE SILENT SCREAM 1 / Extended, High-Resolution Version (with permission from APF). Republished with Permission from Roy Tidwell of American Portrait Films as long as the following credits are shown: VHS/DVDs Available American Portrait Films Call 1-800-736-4567 http://www.amport.com The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Unjust laws exist. Shall we […]
When I think of the things that make me sad concerning this country, the first thing that pops into my mind is our treatment of unborn children. Donald Trump is probably going to run for president of the United States. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council recently had a conversation with him concerning the […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
Sometimes you can see evidences in someone’s life of how content they really are. I saw something like that on 2-8-13 when I confronted a blogger that goes by the name “AngryOldWoman” on the Arkansas Times Blog. See below. Leadership Crisis in America Published on Jul 11, 2012 Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s […]
In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented against abortion (Episode 1), infanticide (Episode 2), euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
That being said, it appears that some of Piketty’s data is sloppy.
I shared some evidence about his bad numbers back in 2014. And, in a column for the Wall Street Journal, Phil Magness of the American Institute for Economic Research and Professor Vincent Geloso of George Mason University expose another glaring flaw
…the Piketty-Saez theory is less a matter of history than an accounting error caused by their misunderstanding of World War II-era tax statistics. …It’s true that income inequality declined in the early part of the 20th century, but the cause had more to do with the economic devastation of the Great Depression than the New Deal tax regime. …they failed to account properly for historical changes in how the Internal Revenue Service reported income-tax statistics.As a result, their numbers systematically overstate the levels of top income concentrations by as much as a third …Between 1943 and 1944 the tax collection agency shifted from tracking “net income” to “adjusted gross income,” or AGI…a truer depiction of annual earnings… Yet Messrs. Piketty and Saez didn’t bring pre-1944 IRS records into line with AGI accounting standards. Instead, they applied a fixed and arbitrary adjustment to all years before the AGI accounting change that conveniently scaled upward to the highest income brackets. …They used the wrong accounting definition for personal income and neglected to adjust their data for wartime distortions on tax reporting. When we corrected these problems, something stunning happened. The overall level of top income concentration flattened, and the timing of its leveling shifted away from the World War II-era tax rates that Messrs. Piketty and Saez place at the center of their story.
Here’s a chart that accompanied the column, showing how accurate data changes the story.
Since today’s column debunks sloppy class warfare, let’s travel back to 2014, when Deirdre McCloskey reviewed Pikittey’s tome for the Erasmus Journal of Philosophy and Economics.
She also thought his fixation on envy was misguided.
…in Piketty’s tale the rest of us fall only relatively behind the ravenous capitalists. The focus on relative wealth or income or consumption is one serious problem in the book. …What is worrying Piketty is that the rich might possibly get richer, even though the poor get richer too.His worry, in other words, is purely about difference, about the Gini coefficient, about a vague feeling of envy raised to a theoretical and ethical proposition. …Piketty and much of the left…miss the ethical point…of lifting up the poor…by the dramatic increase in the size of the pie, which has historically brought the poor to 90 or 95 percent of “enough”, as against the 10 or 5 percent attainable by redistribution without enlarging the pie. …the main event of the past two centuries was…the Great Enrichment of the average individual on the planet by a factor of 10 and in rich countries by a factor of 30 or more.
But she also explained that he doesn’t understand how the economy works.
The fundamental technical problem in the book…is that Piketty the economist does not understand supply responses. In keeping with his position as a man of the left, he has a vague and confused idea about how markets work, and especially about how supply responds to higher prices. …Piketty, it would seem, has not read with understanding the theory of supply and demand that he disparages, such as in Smith (one sneering remark on p. 9), Say (ditto, mentioned in a footnote with Smith as optimistic), Bastiat (no mention), Walras (no mention), Menger (no mention), Marshall (no mention), Mises (no mention), Hayek (one footnote citation on another matter), Friedman (pp. 548-549, but only on monetarism, not the price system). He is in short not qualified to sneer at self-regulated markets…, because he has no idea how they work.
And she concludes with a reminder that some of our left-wing friends seem most interested in punishing rich people rather than helping poor people.
The left clerisy such as…Paul Krugman or Thomas Piketty, who are quite sure that they themselves are taking the ethical high road against the wicked selfishness…might on such evidence be considered dubiously ethical. They are obsessed with first-act changes that cannot much help the poor, and often can be shown to damage them, and are obsessed with angry envy at the consumption of the uncharitable rich, of which they personally are often examples, and the ending of which would do very little to improve the position of the poor. They are very willing to stifle through taxing the rich the market-tested betterments which in the long run have gigantically helped the rest of us.
Amen. If you want to know what Deirdre means by “betterment,” click here and watch her video.
Click here to see the Hoover project showcasing the works of Milton and Rose Friedman.
Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize for
economic science, was a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution
from 1977 to 2006. He passed away on Nov. 16, 2006. (Link to obituary.)
He was also the Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor
Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he taught from
1946 to 1976, and a member of the research staff of the National Bureau
of Economic Research from 1937 to 1981.
Friedman was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988 and received the National Medal of Science the same year.
He was widely regarded as the leader of the Chicago School of
monetary economics, which stresses the importance of the quantity of
money as an instrument of government policy and as a determinant of
business cycles and inflation.
In addition to his scientific work, Friedman also wrote extensively
on public policy, always with a primary emphasis on the preservation and
extension of individual freedom. His most important books in this field
are (with Rose D. Friedman) Capitalism and Freedom (University of Chicago Press, 1962); Bright Promises, Dismal Performance (Thomas Horton and Daughters, 1983), which consists mostly of reprints of columns he wrote for Newsweek from 1966 to 1983; (with Rose D. Friedman) Free to Choose
(Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), which complements a ten-part
television series of the same name shown over the Public Broadcasting
Service (PBS) network in early 1980; and (with Rose D. Friedman) Tyranny of the Status Quo
(Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), which complements a three-part
television series of the same name, shown over PBS in early 1984.
He was a member of the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer
Armed Force and the President’s Commission on White House Fellows. He
was a member of President Ronald Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board
(a group of experts from outside the government named in 1981 by
President Reagan).
Friedman was also active in public affairs, serving as an informal
economic adviser to Senator Barry Goldwater in his unsuccessful campaign
for the presidency in 1964, to Richard Nixon in his successful 1968
campaign, to President Nixon subsequently, and to Ronald Reagan in his
1980 campaign.
He has published many books and articles, most notably A Theory of the Consumption Function, The Optimum Quantity of Money and Other Essays, and (with A. J. Schwartz) A Monetary History of the United States, Monetary Statistics of the United States, and Monetary Trends in the United States and the United Kingdom.
He was a past president of the American Economic Association, the
Western Economic Association, and the Mont Pelerin Society and was a
member of the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of
Sciences.
He was awarded honorary degrees by universities in the United States,
Japan, Israel, and Guatemala, as well as the Grand Cordon of the First
Class Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese government in 1986.
Friedman received a B.A. in 1932 from Rutgers University, an M.A. in
1933 from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in 1946 from Columbia
University.
Two Lucky People, his and Rose D. Friedman’s memoirs, was published in 1998 by the University of Chicago Press.
Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 1-5 How can we have personal
freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why
socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic
freedoms. I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton
Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Tagged arnold schwarzenegger. | Edit | Comments (0)
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With
Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded
Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered
them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of
socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Edit | Comments (1)
Worse still, America’s depression was to become worldwide because of
what lies behind these doors. This is the vault of the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York. Inside is the largest horde of gold in the world.
Because the world was on a gold standard in 1929, these vaults, where
the U.S. gold was stored, […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
George Eccles: Well, then we called all our employees together. And
we told them to be at the bank at their place at 8:00 a.m. and just act
as if nothing was happening, just have a smile on their face, if they
could, and me too. And we have four savings windows and we […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a
Crisis. part 1 FREE TO CHOOSE: Anatomy of Crisis Friedman Delancy Street
in New York’s lower east side, hardly one of the city’s best known
sites, yet what happened in this street nearly 50 years ago continues to
effect all of us today. […]
Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO
CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 2 of 6. Volume
6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: Groups of concerned
parents and teachers decided to do something about it. They used private
funds to take over empty stores and they […]
Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO
CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 1 of 6. Volume
6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: Friedman: These youngsters
are beginning another day at one of America’s public schools, Hyde Park
High School in Boston. What happens when […]
Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created
Equal” (Part 3 of transcript and video) Liberals like President Obama
want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In
fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy
and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Tagged containment devices, equality of outcome, oil spill, youtube | Edit | Comments (0)
Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 2 of
transcript and video) Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for
an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free
society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor.
Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Tagged equality of outcome, menuhin school, new millionaires, world war ii | Edit | Comments (0)
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which
is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 3 OF 7 Worse
still, America’s depression was to become worldwide because of what
lies behind these doors. This is the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank
of New York. Inside […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which
is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. For the past 7
years Maureen Ramsey has had to buy food and clothes for her family out
of a government handout. For the whole of that time, her husband, Steve,
hasn’t […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Edit | Comments (0)
Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave,
Part 1 of 7) Volume 4 – From Cradle to Grave Abstract: Since the
Depression years of the 1930s, there has been almost continuous
expansion of governmental efforts to provide for people’s welfare.
First, there was a tremendous expansion of public works. The Social
Security Act […]
_________________________ Pt3 Nowadays there’s a considerable
amount of traffic at this border. People cross a little more freely than
they use to. Many people from Hong Kong trade in China and the market
has helped bring the two countries closer together, but the barriers
between them are still very real. On this side […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Aside from its harbor, the only other important resource of Hong
Kong is people __ over 4_ million of them. Like America a century ago,
Hong Kong in the past few decades has been a haven for people who sought
the freedom to make the most of their own abilities. Many of them are
[…]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
“FREE TO CHOOSE” 1: The Power of the Market (Milton Friedman) Free to
Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006
4:20:46 PM by Choose Ye This Day FREE TO CHOOSE: The Power of the Market
Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The
Canarce Indians […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With
Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded
Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered
them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of
socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Edit | Comments (1)
A heavy heart is the beginning of misery, and we were never meant to carry the load.
A burdened soul breaks the spirit. A broken spirit thins the immunity of the body. The body then begins to wither, and we get ill. In fact, studies have shown that emotions largely contribute to one’s overall state of health. Doctors call it Emotionally Induced Illness (E.I.I.), and it is the idea that physical sickness can be a result of emotional illness.
The entire body is affected by a heavy heart. But God has given us a remedy for the soul, the spirit, and the body. And it is good medicine…Joy!
Not mere laughter, not mere joking, not mere fun and games, but deep, abiding joy is our strongest medicine and greatest weapon. Joy doesn’t depend upon material things or circumstances. It doesn’t depend upon thrills. It comes straight from the heart.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus spoke of the joy in His own heart, and He promised to give us a dose of it; not just some cheap imitation… He wants to give us the real thing. “My joy have I given unto you.” Jesus said, “I want that joy to remain in you.”
We don’t root our happiness in circumstances, because those can change in an instant and leave us emotionally stranded. We root our joy in Christ alone, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)
“Without joy, life is meaningless!” Acclaimed pastor and teacher, Adrian Rogers says, “That joy is found only in Jesus. And we ought to share the secret, the source of our joy —the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Apply it to your life
Joy is something freely given, but it must be received, day by day. Today, seek it out through prayer and in Scripture. Let it be seen in your countenance as you go about your day, and share it with someone else.
My daughter’s dogs even registered their disapproval during the interview (I’m dog sitting for a few days).…IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig…promised when the leak occurred…to find out what happened, but in September he told Senators, “We do not yet have any information concerning the source.” Since then it’s been crickets. …The leak is a crime, but tracing it isn’t merely a matter of criminal enforcement. The breach highlights the general failure of the IRS to protect taxpayer data. …As troubling is the limp response by the IRS. A separate GAO report this May found that the tax agency failed even to enforce its own authentication protocols, which would help to detect breaches when they occur. …The new money for the IRS is harmful on its own terms, but it’s all the worse when it is provided without strings to an agency that has no idea who is stealing private tax data.
the 25 wealthiest Americans grew about $400 billion richer, according to Forbes. To an economist, this was income, but under tax law, it was mere vapor, irrelevant. And so this group, including the likes of Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett, paid federal income taxes of about 3.4% on the $400 billion, ProPublica reported. We called this the group’s “True Tax Rate.”
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Materials line a table during a gathering of atheist, humanist and secular leaders in Temecula, California, for the first SoCal Secular Leadership Summit, which was held from March 1-3, 2019. Photo courtesy Heather AdamsSeptember 28, 2020By 
The Daily Hatch 