6 Son, if you endorse a note for someone you hardly know, guaranteeing his debt, you are in serious trouble. 2 You may have trapped yourself by your agreement. 3 Quick! Get out of it if you possibly can! Swallow your pride; don’t let embarrassment stand in the way. Go and beg to have your name erased. 4 Don’t put it off. Do it now. Don’t rest until you do. 5 If you can get out of this trap you have saved yourself like a deer that escapes from a hunter or a bird from the net.
6 Take a lesson from the ants, you lazy fellow. Learn from their ways and be wise! 7 For though they have no king to make them work, 8 yet they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. 9 But you—all you do is sleep. When will you wake up? 10 “Let me sleep a little longer!” Sure, just a little more! 11 And as you sleep, poverty creeps upon you like a robber and destroys you; want attacks you in full armor.
12-13 Let me describe for you a worthless and a wicked man; first, he is a constant liar; he signals his true intentions to his friends with eyes and feet and fingers. 14 He is always thinking up new schemes to swindle people. He stirs up trouble everywhere. 15 But he will be destroyed suddenly, broken beyond hope of healing.
16-19 For there are six things the Lord hates—no, seven: haughtiness, lying, murdering, plotting evil, eagerness to do wrong, a false witness, sowing discord among brothers.
20 Young man, obey your father and your mother. 21 Take to heart all of their advice; keep in mind everything they tell you. 22 Every day and all night long their counsel will lead you and save you from harm; when you wake up in the morning, let their instructions guide you into the new day. 23 For their advice is a beam of light directed into the dark corners of your mind to warn you of danger and to give you a good life. 24 Their counsel will keep you far away from prostitutes, with all their flatteries, and unfaithful wives of other men.
25 Don’t lust for their beauty. Don’t let their coyness seduce you. 26 For a prostitute will bring a man to poverty, and an adulteress may cost him his very life. 27 Can a man hold fire against his chest and not be burned? 28 Can he walk on hot coals and not blister his feet? 29 So it is with the man who commits adultery with another’s wife. He shall not go unpunished for this sin. 30 Excuses might even be found for a thief if he steals when he is starving! 31 But even so, he is fined seven times as much as he stole, though it may mean selling everything in his house to pay it back.
32 But the man who commits adultery is an utter fool, for he destroys his own soul. 33 Wounds and constant disgrace are his lot, 34 for the woman’s husband will be furious in his jealousy, and he will have no mercy on you in his day of vengeance. 35 You won’t be able to buy him off no matter what you offer.
I started this serieson my letters andpostcards toHugh Hefner backin September when I read of thepassing of Mr. Hefner. There are manymore to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite cities!!!!
Today is Feb 6 so I want to quote from Proverbs 6. Good advice today from anyone in New Orleans like me.
Here are the rest of the chapter 6 of Proverbs (24-36):
4-35 They’ll protect you from wanton women, from the seductive talk of some temptress. Don’t lustfully fantasize on her beauty, nor be taken in by her bedroom eyes. You can buy an hour with a whore for a loaf of bread, but a wanton woman may well eat you alive. Can you build a fire in your lap and not burn your pants? Can you walk barefoot on hot coals and not get blisters? It’s the same when you have sex with your neighbor’s wife: Touch her and you’ll pay for it. No excuses. Hunger is no excuse for a thief to steal; When he’s caught he has to pay it back, even if he has to put his whole house in hock. Adultery is a brainless act, soul-destroying, self-destructive; Expect a bloody nose, a black eye, and a reputation ruined for good. For jealousy detonates rage in a cheated husband; wild for revenge, he won’t make allowances. Nothing you say or pay will make it all right; neither bribes nor reason will satisfy him.
—-
The key verse is
“….a wanton woman may well eat you alive. Can you build a fire in your lap and not burn your pants? Can you walk barefoot on hot coals and not get blisters?”
How would you answer that question from SOLOMON? Remember that he KNOWS how it is to live your life!!!!
I wrote to Hefner in an earlier letter these words:
If there was one word to describe your life the word PLEASURE is probably that word. As you know I have written you every week since October of 2015 in the hope that you will be willing to reflect back on your life of pleasure UNDER THE SUN like King Solomon did and see what proper reflections your life has rendered. Francis Schaeffer has rightly noted concerning you that your goal with the “playboy mentality is just to smash the puritanical ethnic.” In fact, in your own personal life you definitely have gone the opposite direction of Puritanism.
This is the “chief of sinners,” Daniel Whyte III, president of Gospel Light Society International, reminding you of what the Bible says, that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” like you and me.
On September 27, 2017, Hugh Hefner met God.
The man — who lived in a $200 million mansion, who had a net worth of $110 million, and who built his life and business empire on the pursuit of pleasure — epitomized the wealthy barn builder of Jesus’ parable — the man who said he would “take his ease, eat, drink, and be merry.”
While the rich man of Jesus’ parable sought pleasure and fulfillment through money and material success, Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy Enterprises, sought pleasure and fulfillment through sex. He claimed to have been intimate with over 1,000 women. But according to a Vanity Fair article, this pursuit of sex stemmed from him growing up in an unaffectionate home which created a “need to feel loved that became the key to his life.” Later on, when he found out that his wife had committed adultery while he was in the army, he said, “It was probably the most devastating experience of my life. I think it gave me permission to live the life of pleasure I have lived.”
But, did Hugh Hefner find the love he was looking for? No, he did not. At age 85 he admitted, “I think that what I’m probably doing is avoiding being hurt again. I never really found my soulmate.” Of course, in the process of seeking pleasure, love, and a soulmate, he hurt many other people and left a trail of shame, shattered lives, sexual perversion, venereal disease, aborted babies, and all the other consequences of sin.
Whether he realized the consequences of his actions before he died, we do not know. But, at the end of his life, he was still seeking his own pleasure. He arranged for his ashes to be interred beside iconic actress and model Marilyn Monroe, the woman who appeared in the first edition of Playboy. He said, “Spending eternity next to Marilyn is an opportunity too sweet to pass up.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Hefner likely won’t be spending eternity with Marilyn — at least not in the way he thought. Instead, he has to answer to God for the life he lived and the sins he committed. Romans 14:12 says, “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” The thing most people don’t realize is that God wants us to be able to give a good account to Him. That’s why He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins, taking our punishment on Himself, so that when we stand before God, we can say with confidence that Jesus is our Savior, that our sins have been forgiven, and that we have a home in Heaven. It’s called the Gospel. A Gospel which the Chicago Tribune investigative reporter and former atheist Lee Strobel shared with Hugh Hefner.
As far as we know, Hugh Hefner didn’t realize that the love he was looking for is the unadulterated, unconditional love of God, that the soulmate he was seeking is Jesus Christ, and that the pleasure he desired could only be found in eternal life in Heaven. All other avenues, no matter how much enjoyment and excitement they bring, eventually fail. You don’t have to live the kind of life lived by Hugh Hefner and so many others who were influenced by his misguided notions of sex and pleasure. You can find love, salvation, joy, and pleasure forevermore in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
Allow me to explain further.
First, you must realize and admit that you — just as myself — are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s laws. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 7:20: “For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not.” Romans 3:23 reads: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Our sin nature is the reason why we do not get along with each other on earth.
Second, you must understand that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…” — spiritual death and physical death. We die physically and go to the grave because of sin and we die spiritually and go to hell because of sin.
Third, you must understand that you are on the road to hell because of your sins. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” The Bible says in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”
Fourth, you must accept the fact that you cannot do anything to save yourself! The Bible states in Ephesians 2: 8, 9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith: and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Fifth, you must accept the fact that God loves you more than you love yourself, and that He wants to save you from hell. Because of God’s love for you, he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty for your sin. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Because God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins, we can live with God in Heaven for all eternity after we die.
Finally, with these facts in mind, you must repent of your sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and pray and ask Him to come into your heart and save you this very moment. The Bible states in the book of Romans 10:9, 13: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
If you are willing to trust Jesus Christ as your Saviour, please pray with me the following prayer to seal your decision once and for all: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and I want to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I now believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I want to trust Jesus as my Savior and follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen.
If you just trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and you prayed that prayer and meant it from your heart, I declare to you that based upon the Word of God, you are now saved and you are on your way to Heaven. Welcome to the family of God! I want to congratulate you on doing the most important thing in life and that is receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. For more information to help you grow in your new-found faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”
Believe by faith. Share the faith. And keep the faith! God bless you!
Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books including the Essence Magazine, Dallas Morning News, and Amazon.com national bestseller, Letters to Young Black Men. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry.
He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others.
He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity (formerly Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary). He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree.
He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica since 1987. God has blessed their union with seven children.
Ecclesiastes 2-3 Published on Sep 19, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 16, 2012 | Derek Neider _____________________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular […]
Is Love All You Need? Jesus v. Lennon Posted on January 19, 2011 by Jovan Payes 0 On June 25, 1967, the Beatles participated in the first worldwide TV special called “Our World”. During this special, the Beatles introduced “All You Need is Love”; one of their most famous and recognizable songs. In it, John Lennon […]
___________________ Something happened to the Beatles in their journey through the 1960’s and although they started off wanting only to hold their girlfriend’s hand it later evolved into wanting to smash all previous sexual standards. The Beatles: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? _______ Beatle Ringo Starr, and his girlfriend, later his wife, […]
__________ Marvin Minsky __ I was sorry recently to learn of the passing of one of the great scholars of our generation. I have written about Marvin Minsky several times before in this series and today I again look at a letter I wrote to him in the last couple of years. It is my […]
Why was Tony Curtis on the cover of SGT PEPPERS? I have no idea but if I had to hazard a guess I would say that probably it was because he was in the smash hit SOME LIKE IT HOT. Above from the movie SOME LIKE IT HOT __ __ Jojo was a man who […]
__ Francis Schaeffer did not shy away from appreciating the Beatles. In fact, SERGEANT PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND album was his favorite and he listened to it over and over. I am a big fan of Francis Schaeffer but there are detractors that attack him because he did not have all the degrees that they […]
On 11-15-05 Adrian Rogers passed over to glory and since it is the 10th anniversary of that day I wanted to celebrate his life in two ways. First, I wanted to pass on some of the material from Adrian Rogers’ sermons I have sent to prominent atheists over the last 20 years. Second, I wanted […]
Looking back on his life as a Beatle Paul said at a certain age you start to think “Wow, I have to get serious. I can’t just be a playboy all of my life.” It is true that the Beatles wrote a lot about girls!!!!!! The Beatles – I Want To Hold your Hand [HD] Although […]
5 Listen to me, my son! I know what I am saying; listen!2 Watch yourself, lest you be indiscreet and betray some vital information. 3 For the lips of a prostitute[a] are as sweet as honey, and smooth flattery is her stock-in-trade. 4 But afterwards only a bitter conscience is left to you,[b] sharp as a double-edged sword. 5 She leads you down to death and hell. 6 For she does not know the path to life. She staggers down a crooked trail and doesn’t even realize where it leads.
7 Young men, listen to me, and never forget what I’m about to say: 8 Run from her! Don’t go near her house,9 lest you fall to her temptation and lose your honor, and give the remainder of your life to the cruel and merciless;[c]10 lest strangers obtain your wealth, and you become a slave of foreigners. 11 Lest afterwards you groan in anguish and in shame when syphilis[d] consumes your body, 12 and you say, “Oh, if only I had listened! If only I had not demanded my own way! 13 Oh, why wouldn’t I take advice? Why was I so stupid? 14 For now I must face public disgrace.”
15 Drink from your own well, my son—be faithful and true to your wife. 16 Why should you beget children with women of the street? 17 Why share your children with those outside your home? 18 Be happy, yes, rejoice in the wife of your youth. 19 Let her breasts and tender embrace[e] satisfy you. Let her love alone fill you with delight. 20 Why delight yourself with prostitutes, embracing what isn’t yours? 21 For God is closely watching you, and he weighs carefully everything you do.
22 The wicked man is doomed by his own sins; they are ropes that catch and hold him. 23 He shall die because he will not listen to the truth; he has let himself be led away into incredible folly.
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite cities!!!!
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, his son Marston Hefner, and his girlfriend, October 2010 Playboy Playmate of the Month Claire Sinclair, pose with a group of Playboy Playmates as they celebrate Hugh Hefner‘s 85th birthday and Marston Hefner’s 21st birthday at the Palms Casino Resort April 9, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
__
__
Below is the postcard I sent:
_
___
8-28-16
Dear Hugh,
While in Las Vegas I always try to go to church and my favorite church is HOPE COMMUNITY CHURCH where I heard the message THE TALK:AN HONEST CONVERSATION ABOUT GOD’S DESIGN FOR SEX just last September. The pastor Vance Pittman is from Memphis where I grew up. You can google this message and listen to it yourself. I thought of you when Vance said:
How has the GREAT SEXUAL REVOLUTION OF THE 1960’s brought great transformation to our society? Why do so many even in our secular society look back to the 1950’s as the GOOD OLE DAYS! It is because of all the HURT, PAIN and SCARS since then. Proverbs 5:18-19 says:
18 Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, 19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated[a] always in her love.
Andy Stanley in his book THE NEW RULES FOR LOVE, SEX AND DATING wrote: When we ignore God’s relational purpose for sex…when we rip sex out of its divinely designed relational context…we hurt ourselves.
From Everette Hatcher, P.O.Box 23416, Little Rock, AR 72221, PS: Jesus loves you Hugh and I do too! If your mother GRACE was here she would be telling the same thing too!!!!!
__________________
I wrote to Hefner in an earlier letter these words:
Don’t you see that Solomon was right when he observed life UNDER THE SUN without God in the picture and he then concluded in Ecclesiastes 2:11:
“All was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained UNDER THE SUN.”
Notice this phrase UNDER THE SUN since it appears about 30 times in Ecclesiastes. Francis Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”
Sinful Solomon: “……..Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” [Ecclesiastes 12:13]
“…….Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment……” [Ecclesiastes 9:11]
The God / Man Holy Christ:“………For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
As I began to delve once again into God’s Word, I recognized three steps I should have taken when faced with the temptation.
by Judy Starr
In her book, The Enticement of the Forbidden, Judy Starr tells about the intense attraction she felt toward another man during a mission trip in the Caribbean. She and her husband, Stottler, had begun the mission trip together, and she stayed on after he left because of other responsibilities. Her story here begins at the point when she returned home from the project.
My decision before God to remain faithful and return home came solely from my will, because my heart ached to stay with Eric. As I moved through the motions of boarding the plane home, numbness overtook my senses. Nothing seemed real.
The plane finally touched down in California. The grace of God, along with the counsel and prayers of others, had brought me home. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. As if moving through a haze, I staggered down the ramp to meet my husband. The weight of despondency dragged at every step. I had phoned Stottler, revealing part of the story, and I told him I was coming home. Now it was time to face him. By God’s grace there had been nothing physical between Eric and me, but emotional infidelity seemed equally as painful.
When we arrived at our house, Stottler and I sat tensely on the couch, my legs shaking with fear, anticipation, and exhaustion. Weary of the battle against God, I yearned for His fellowship again. I missed having a tender heart that could sense His leading. I also hurt over the anguish I had caused my sweet husband. But the healing of my relationships with God and Stottler was only possible if I began making right choices.
When we choose to sin, problems and sufferings will drag behind us like a ball and chain. The only way to break the chain is to deal with the root cause—confess the sin. So I told Stottler how I felt about Eric. I told him that I had seriously considered staying in the Caribbean. Then I asked for his forgiveness.
I am enormously blessed to have a godly husband. We cried together many times, and we began the process of rebuilding what I had so quickly torn down. Yet for a time, my emotions continued to bleed.
Addiction and withdrawal
Much like a drug addict in isolation, I experienced withdrawal symptoms from Eric. In many ways, an affair is similar to an alcohol or drug addiction. The process of breaking free brings intense feelings of pain, anxiety, and depression. For several months I longed to be with Eric, and a continual dull throb lodged in my heart. Life often seemed bleak, and the future uninviting.
Although I don’t remember having thoughts of suicide, they are not uncommon for people mired in affairs. A woman can’t imagine life without her lover, yet she also recognizes the grief she is causing her family. Suicide may seem the only way out. But time does heal wounds. As the days wore into months, my internal hemorrhaging slowed to a drip, then finally began to close.
It was a slow process back. I had constructed a brick wall between God, Stottler, and myself through one bad choice at a time. Now I needed to make good choices one at a time to tear down that wall. Although the process was painful, each day became a little easier—as long as I stayed away from Eric.
What I should have done
As I began to delve once again into God’s Word, the Lord clearly showed me three steps I should have taken when faced with the temptation toward Eric. These steps also apply to any woman who chooses to rebuild her marriage after making poor choices.
Step 1: Be honest with yourself. Looking back on my entire scenario in the Caribbean, I wondered if the romance with Eric was unavoidable. I alone was responsible for the preparations and daily operations of the boat project. Therefore, each day I had to work closely with a charming captain while being surrounded by an enticing, seductive setting. Was all the heartache avoidable? The answer: absolutely! I could have stopped myself before the infatuation ever began.
Through my disastrous choices, I learned a very important truth: Never underestimate the power of attraction! When attracted to a man, it’s easy to convince ourselves that the feelings could never really grow, so we try to rationalize them away.
Yet we can so quickly begin daydreaming about this attraction: I wonder where he is right now. I really enjoyed our conversation yesterday. When can we talk again? Of course, this friendship is harmless. I would never want anything to happen—I just enjoy his company.
I had those thoughts. They are an open door to a roomful of deadly cobras. The enemy wants you to believe those little lies so that he can slowly ease you into the room. And once you’re in, you will be bitten. Playing with poison will ruin your life.
As we begin toying with an attraction, by necessity we hide our feelings and actions from our husband. The Lord says, “Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil” (Proverbs 12:20). Deceit always leads to further deceit as sin takes us further and further into danger. It’s so much easier to close the door and never step into the snake pit in the first place!
Step 2: Be honest with God. I believe that what made me the most vulnerable for my involvement with Eric was my lack of daily time in God’s presence. Nothing in my life has had the consistent power to transform me more than my daily times of reading the Bible and praying.
For several months previous to the Caribbean project, I had been ignoring God’s daily call to come away with Him for a time of refreshment and renewal. By the time I arrived on the boat and met the captain, I had a wall of poor choices blocking my sensitivity to the Lord. Because I had allowed my heart to become spiritually insensitive, I refused to bring my feelings toward Eric to the Lord. I refused to acknowledge His conviction, seek His perspective, and rely on His strength to resist my wandering emotions. It was a recipe for disaster.
I am convinced that the most critical element in protecting your marriage is your personal time alone with God. It is irreplaceable. There are no substitutes—not listening to Christian music or Christian radio, not going to church or attending Bible studies. Only as we spend regular one-on-one time in prayer with the Father and time reading His Word will we keep our heart sensitive to obeying His voice in the face of temptation.
Step 3: Be honest with your husband.Once Stottler and I were aboard the boat, it was only a matter of days before I knew a strong attraction existed between Eric and me. But I failed to use the protection that God had provided to help me lock the door on temptation—honesty with my husband.
As soon as I felt that excitement of attraction toward Eric, I should have told Stottler. Telling your husband is a marvelous way to dispel the mystery of a secret intrigue. As long as no one knows, you nurture that attraction, create romantic scenarios in your mind, and dream the fantasy. But as soon as you invite your husband into the fantasy bubble, it bursts. Its ugliness is exposed. And though revealing the temptation to your husband may feel uncomfortable at the time, doing so will save you both from incredible long-term heartache.
God gives our husbands to us as an umbrella of protection. Their prayers for us are God-ordained coverings of shelter. If I had told Stottler immediately upon sensing my attraction to Eric, my thoughts would have been exposed and Stottler could have prayed for me. His prayers and wisdom could have strengthened me to remain sensitive to God’s leading throughout my dealings with Eric. My accountability friends should have been told as well. Giving an account to others is a wonderful deterrent to disobedience.
I also should have determined never to be alone with Eric and sought Stottler’s accountability on this as well. When the need arose to work with Eric, my husband or one of the team members should have been included.
No secrets
Upon returning home to California, I developed a “No Secrets Policy” toward Stottler. What a relief it was to have the closet door opened and all the darkness exposed! My No Secrets Policy relates to any area of my marriage or my walk with God that will affect my relationship with Stottler. For example, feelings of attraction to another man, past moral indiscretions, impure fantasies, and a stagnant fellowship with the Lord can all create a wedge in a marriage if not dealt with immediately.
Honesty, however, is not an excuse for a lack of restraint in our words. The No Secrets Policy does not give me the right to say anything to my husband that pops into my head, especially on those days when I feel like spitting nails. Spewing every negative thought I may have toward Stottler in a moment of anger or physical depression is a sure way to drive a wedge into our relationship. Those moments require self-control.
Honesty protects both our husbands and us. It helps our husbands know our predisposition toward certain temptations so that they can help us face those challenges. By revealing to Stottler any current temptation I may be facing, he can help me to avoid further disasters. And if I continue pursuing the temptation, I will have to tell him. What a wonderful deterrent that is! It’s easier to just resist the temptation in the first place than to reveal my failure to my husband after the fact.
If establishing honesty in your marriage means exposing an affair from your past, proceed carefully. Make sure you have confessed your sin to the Lord and that your heart is broken over your wrongdoing. Then think through how to reveal this news, knowing that it will most likely elicit strong emotions.
When you reveal a previous or current indiscretion, your husband will very likely be upset. Therefore, you may want to talk with a pastor or a Christian counselor first to receive his wisdom on how to share a dark secret. If your husband has been known to be abusive, ask someone to accompany you. Although building a foundation of honesty may be frightening, keep in mind the words of Dr. Willard Harley: “As painful as it is to discover an affair, very few ever divorce because of it. In most cases, both spouses make adjustments that help avoid a repeat. But without the truth, there is little assurance that it will not happen again.”
Ecclesiastes 2-3 Published on Sep 19, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 16, 2012 | Derek Neider _____________________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular […]
Is Love All You Need? Jesus v. Lennon Posted on January 19, 2011 by Jovan Payes 0 On June 25, 1967, the Beatles participated in the first worldwide TV special called “Our World”. During this special, the Beatles introduced “All You Need is Love”; one of their most famous and recognizable songs. In it, John Lennon […]
___________________ Something happened to the Beatles in their journey through the 1960’s and although they started off wanting only to hold their girlfriend’s hand it later evolved into wanting to smash all previous sexual standards. The Beatles: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? _______ Beatle Ringo Starr, and his girlfriend, later his wife, […]
__________ Marvin Minsky __ I was sorry recently to learn of the passing of one of the great scholars of our generation. I have written about Marvin Minsky several times before in this series and today I again look at a letter I wrote to him in the last couple of years. It is my […]
Why was Tony Curtis on the cover of SGT PEPPERS? I have no idea but if I had to hazard a guess I would say that probably it was because he was in the smash hit SOME LIKE IT HOT. Above from the movie SOME LIKE IT HOT __ __ Jojo was a man who […]
__ Francis Schaeffer did not shy away from appreciating the Beatles. In fact, SERGEANT PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND album was his favorite and he listened to it over and over. I am a big fan of Francis Schaeffer but there are detractors that attack him because he did not have all the degrees that they […]
On 11-15-05 Adrian Rogers passed over to glory and since it is the 10th anniversary of that day I wanted to celebrate his life in two ways. First, I wanted to pass on some of the material from Adrian Rogers’ sermons I have sent to prominent atheists over the last 20 years. Second, I wanted […]
Looking back on his life as a Beatle Paul said at a certain age you start to think “Wow, I have to get serious. I can’t just be a playboy all of my life.” It is true that the Beatles wrote a lot about girls!!!!!! The Beatles – I Want To Hold your Hand [HD] Although […]
4 1-2 Young men, listen to me as you would to your father. Listen, and grow wise, for I speak the truth—don’t turn away. 3 For I, too, was once a son, tenderly loved by my mother as an only child, and the companion of my father. 4 He told me never to forget his words. “If you follow them,” he said, “you will have a long and happy life. 5 Learn to be wise,” he said, “and develop good judgment and common sense! I cannot overemphasize this point.”[a]6 Cling to wisdom—she will protect you. Love her—she will guard you.
7 Getting wisdom is the most important thing you can do! And with your wisdom, develop common sense and good judgment. 8-9 If you exalt wisdom, she will exalt you. Hold her fast, and she will lead you to great honor; she will place a beautiful crown upon your head. 10 My son, listen to me and do as I say, and you will have a long, good life.
11 I would have you learn this great fact: that a life of doing right is the wisest life there is. 12 If you live that kind of life, you’ll not limp or stumble as you run. 13 Carry out my instructions; don’t forget them, for they will lead you to real living.
14 Don’t do as the wicked do. 15 Avoid their haunts—turn away, go somewhere else, 16 for evil men can’t sleep until they’ve done their evil deed for the day. They can’t rest unless they cause someone to stumble and fall. 17 They eat and drink wickedness and violence!
18 But the good man walks along in the ever-brightening light of God’s favor; the dawn gives way to morning splendor, 19 while the evil man gropes and stumbles in the dark.
20 Listen, son of mine, to what I say. Listen carefully. 21 Keep these thoughts ever in mind; let them penetrate deep within your heart, 22 for they will mean real life for you and radiant health.
23 Above all else, guard your affections. For they influence everything else in your life. 24 Spurn the careless kiss of a prostitute.[b] Stay far from her. 25 Look straight ahead; don’t even turn your head to look. 26 Watch your step. Stick to the path and be safe. 27 Don’t sidetrack; pull back your foot from danger.
—
I started this serieson my letters andpostcards toHugh Hefner backin September when I read of thepassing of Mr. Hefner. There are manymore to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite cities!!!!
_
Dear Hef,
It is 8-26-16 and its a Friday nite in Vegas for me. What should I do tonite?
I noticed something quite sad today. I pulled up to a red light and to my right was a small newspaper container that had a picture of a naked lady on it advertising a nightclub show and a moment later a minivan pulled up with two young parents and their elementary children.
It reminded me of the blessing that you and I had to be raised by Christian parents and it reminded me of what King Solomon said in Proverbs 4:
I was a boy at my father’s knee,
the pride and joy of my mother,
He would sit me down and drill me:
“Take this to heart. Do what I tell you—live!
Sell everything and buy Wisdom…
it will add years to your life…
Keep your eyes straight ahead;
I wrote to Hefner in an earlier letter these words:
If there was one word to describe your life the word PLEASURE is probably that word. As you know I have written you every week since October of 2015 in the hope that you will be willing to reflect back on your life of pleasure UNDER THE SUN like King Solomon did and see what proper reflections your life has rendered. Francis Schaeffer has rightly noted concerning you that your goal with the “playboy mentality is just to smash the puritanical ethnic.” In fact, in your own personal life you definitely have gone the opposite direction of Puritanism.
Hugh Hefner, America’s king of pornography, died Wednesday, leading to countless online articles praising his “accomplishments” as he left the world behind at 91 years of age. While many are celebrating his life, the truth is that he was one of the most destructive figures of the 20th century.
His Playboy magazine was the introduction to a life of addiction for likely millions of people. I’ve heard quite a few men tell their story of entering into a long battle with pornography with one glimpse of one of Hefner’s magazines at a young age. While the world looks on those stories as positive memories and chalk it up to “boys being boys,” both the Bible and science tell us that the habits Hefner helped people form are incredibly destructive. They destroy trust and intimacy in marriages. They destroy honesty with God and fellow Christians. They destroy a healthy appreciation for what sex was intended to be. They destroy the brain as they wreck its dopamine reward system and cause people to seek increasingly depraved material. That’s why Jesus instructed us to go to whatever measure necessary to overcome lust (Matthew 5:29-30). It’s that big of a problem when it gets a hold on our lives.
Beyond just the magazine he produced, Hefner was also known for the lifestyle he led, surrounded by countless models in a California mansion. Many viewed him as “the luckiest man in the world” for living such a hedonistic life. His sexual freedom has been held up as a man’s highest hope in life for decades. And yet it was so hopelessly shallow.
Though Hefner embodied everything the world sees as a good time, inside his life was devoid of any meaning, true connection, or love. Solomon, the wisest man on earth in his day, pointed out in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon what a blessing it is for a man to treasure the wife of his youth. Love comes from commitment, self-sacrifice, and service, not endless sex. Studies have borne out the fact that relationships are better when sex is put off. God was right, and man continues to be wrong. Who would have guessed?
Hugh Hefner is not a man whose life should be celebrated. Instead, we must be diligent to rescue those who have fallen into the trap of evil that he set all those decades ago and that is carried on by countless websites today. I encourage you to check out Overcome, a ministry that two of my friends began to help Christians fight pornography addiction, along with sites like Fight the New Drug and tools like Covenant Eyes. I encourage elders, preachers, youth ministers, and especially parents to be educated on the issue of pornography and to confront it firmly and lovingly.
Hefner doubtlessly made plenty of money in his life off of people who spend every Sunday in a church building. Let’s refuse to let that industry continue to claim our people and be constant in proclaiming the truth about pornography in our pulpits and equipping our members to win this fight.
_________
Joshua Johnson
Josh is a writer and politicial activist based in Nebraska. Josh helped found American Watchmen in 2016 and currently serves as one of our Editors and as our Personnel Manager. He also writes for the Federalist Papers and has previously written for Red Millennial and 2AO Nation as well. You can follow him on Twitter at: @JJohnson_AWView all posts by Joshua Johnson
Dorothy Stratten was murdered by Paul Snider seen above
We should be alert for the initial warning signs of unfaithfulness.
By Dennis Rainey
Adultery is often sparked by emotional unfaithfulness. Two people form an emotional connection, and then sparks began to fly. What was first an emotional affair then becomes a physical affair.
Satan is sly. He takes good gifts of God, such as the intimacy and oneness of spirit that can occur through prayer or Bible study, and interjects some quality into them that is not pleasing to God. We have to be on the alert for the initial warning signs of that, especially in Christian circles. There are several precautions you should take.
First, be careful about how much you share with a person of the opposite sex.You should beware of praying with just one member of the opposite sex, because of the intimacy involved in prayer. Never share with someone of the opposite sex a problem that you are having with your spouse. It is totally inappropriate for a man to share with a woman any negative comment about his wife, or for a woman to share with a man any negative comment about her husband.
Second, memorize Scripture. If we are going to be able to resist the temptations that will inevitably come, we must have lives built on the foundation of the Word of God.
Memorize verses like 2 Timothy 2:22, which says, “Now flee from youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” When you are tempted, the Holy Spirit will bring to your mind those verses that you have committed to memory.
Third, cultivate intimacy with your spouse. Make your marriage a priority, and make intimacy such a fun reality in your marriage that you are not even tempted to leave. Learn how to please your spouse, and teach him or her how to please you.
Fourth, maintain openness in your relationship with your spouse. Early in our marriage, Barbara and I were leading a Bible study and one night Barbara told me she was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable with one of the men.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, I just sense that he is a little too friendly,” she said. “You know, I feel foolish for sharing this with you. This is so dumb. There is a voice inside me that says, Don’t share it, don’t let him hear that.”
But I put my arms around Barbara and I said, “I want you to know, Sweetheart, that sharing that with me is the most important thing you could have done.” That is the time when temptation needs to be shared. If you wait until it is full-birthed temptation, it will be too difficult to share. You should discuss it while it still feels “silly.”
A fifth guard against the trap of adultery is to control your thought life. If you entertain a fantasy, you are allowing your own desires to drag you away.
It is not wrong to be attracted, and it is not wrong to be tempted. That is not sin. Sin occurs when we act on the temptation. James 1:14-15 tells us, “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”
The result of entertaining temptation and then acting on it is death; it is not pleasure. It will not result in long-term satisfaction. It will result in destruction.
Ecclesiastes 2-3 Published on Sep 19, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 16, 2012 | Derek Neider _____________________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular […]
Is Love All You Need? Jesus v. Lennon Posted on January 19, 2011 by Jovan Payes 0 On June 25, 1967, the Beatles participated in the first worldwide TV special called “Our World”. During this special, the Beatles introduced “All You Need is Love”; one of their most famous and recognizable songs. In it, John Lennon […]
___________________ Something happened to the Beatles in their journey through the 1960’s and although they started off wanting only to hold their girlfriend’s hand it later evolved into wanting to smash all previous sexual standards. The Beatles: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? _______ Beatle Ringo Starr, and his girlfriend, later his wife, […]
__________ Marvin Minsky __ I was sorry recently to learn of the passing of one of the great scholars of our generation. I have written about Marvin Minsky several times before in this series and today I again look at a letter I wrote to him in the last couple of years. It is my […]
Why was Tony Curtis on the cover of SGT PEPPERS? I have no idea but if I had to hazard a guess I would say that probably it was because he was in the smash hit SOME LIKE IT HOT. Above from the movie SOME LIKE IT HOT __ __ Jojo was a man who […]
__ Francis Schaeffer did not shy away from appreciating the Beatles. In fact, SERGEANT PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND album was his favorite and he listened to it over and over. I am a big fan of Francis Schaeffer but there are detractors that attack him because he did not have all the degrees that they […]
On 11-15-05 Adrian Rogers passed over to glory and since it is the 10th anniversary of that day I wanted to celebrate his life in two ways. First, I wanted to pass on some of the material from Adrian Rogers’ sermons I have sent to prominent atheists over the last 20 years. Second, I wanted […]
Looking back on his life as a Beatle Paul said at a certain age you start to think “Wow, I have to get serious. I can’t just be a playboy all of my life.” It is true that the Beatles wrote a lot about girls!!!!!! The Beatles – I Want To Hold your Hand [HD] Although […]
The Incredible Steven Weinberg (1933-2021) – Sixty Symbols
—
EMAIL TO DR. WEINBERG ON 5/27/14 on book SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS by Carl Sagan.
I wrote you last month and sent you a CD by Adrian Rogers called IS THE BIBLE TRUE? Did you have a chance to listen to it. Here is link to the same message on You Tube. In that letter I included some correspondence I had with the famous skeptics Antony Flew and Carl Sagan back in the 1990’s. Both men were kind enough to look at the evidence that presented them and respond to it and I was hoping you would take time to do that same.
Today, I just wanted to ask you this simple question. Do you think there is a categorical difference between humans and animals or are just different in just degrees?
Dr. John J. Shea appeared on the TV series APE MAN with Walter Cronkite back in the 1990’s and claimed that there is only a degree of difference between monkeys and humans and not a categorical difference. After that program aired I had the opportunity to correspond with Dr. Shea and he was kind enough to send me a two page response to my questions. (This correspondence took place back in 1994 and 1995.)
Dr. Shea also suggested that I read SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS by Carl Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan, and I did so. Here are my thoughts on the question.
First, only humans lie in the sense we are held morally responsible. Sagan wrote, “Deception in the social relations of animals…is an emerging and productive topic in biology…” (p. 379). This may be true, but are animals responsible to God? I think not. Romans 3:23 teaches that “All MEN have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Animals may deceive but they are not morally responsible.
Second, only men feel guilt. Sagan refers briefly to the fact that men feel guilt (p. 4.14), but he does not spend a lot of time on this. Romans 1:19 asserts, “For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God has show it to them” (Amplified Bible). Here Sagan turns to Thomas Henry Huxley who he quotes:
On all sides, I shall hear the cry–“We are men and women, not a mere better sort of apes, a little longer in the leg, more compact in the foot, and bigger in brain than your brutal Chimpanzees and Gorillas. The power of knowledge–the conscience of good and evil--the pitiful tenderness of human affections, raise us out of all real fellowship with the brutes, however, closely they may seem to approximate us.”
To this I can reply that the exclamation would be just and would be most just and would have my entire sympathy, if it were only relevant. But, it is not I who seek to base Man’s dignity upon this great toe, or insinuate that we are lost if an Ape has a hippocampus minor (in its brain). On the contrary, I have done my best to sweep away this vanity…
WHY DID SAGAN AND HUXLEY FACE SUCH A LARGE CHORUS THAT WAS OBJECTING TO THIS VIEW THAT WE DON’T HAVE A GOD-GIVEN CONSCIENCE? The answer is very simple and it deals with the consequences of Social Darwinism. Chuck Colson said that Larry King was not very impressed with his long talk on the historical accuracy of the scriptures, but when he touched on this subject things got interesting:
Larry King invited me to dinner. “I don’t believe in God,” Larry told me straight out. “But tell me why you believe.” I responded, “Have you seen Woody Allen‘s movie CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS?
Yes, he loved it, in fact. It’s about a doctor who is haunted by GUILT after hiring a killer to murder his mistress. His Jewish father has taught him that God will surely bring justice. In the end the doctor suppresses his GUILT, convincing himself that LIFE IS AN DARWINIAN STRUGGLE WHERE ONLY THE RUTHLESS SURVIVE.
I asked Larry, “Is that our only choice–to be tormented by GUILT or else kill our conscience? Larry, how do you deal with your conscience?” He dropped his fork. I said, “What do you do with the GUILT that is in here? What do you do with what you know you have done wrong?
Then he was ready to listen. I went on and shared with him from Romans which teaches about the voice of conscience that God has given us.
__________
Third, men have a longing for significance which expresses itself most clearly in the fear of non being.
Fourth, I would point to the fact that only people worship.
Fifth, men are not satisfied unless they have their spiritual needs met. Carl Sagan quotes the poet Walt Whitman, “Not one (animal) is dissatisfied…Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth…” Sagan comments, “On this basis of the evidence presented in this book, we doubt if any of Whitman’s six purported differences between other animals and humans is true…” (p. 389).
I read Sagan’s book cover to cover and made over 15 pages of notes, and I have yet to find any of the “evidence” that Sagan speaks of on page 389. I find the comments of NOAM CHOMSKY more logical. He calls animal language an “evolutionary miracle” akin to “finding an island of humans who could be taught to fly.”
I like Francis Schaeffer‘s term “Mannishness” of man. He defines it as those aspects of man, such as significance, love, rationality and the fear of non being, which mark him off from animals and machines and give evidence of his being created in the image of a personal God.
The scientist Blaise Pascal is quoted by Sagan on page 364 and then Sagan notes, “Most of the philosophers adjudged great in the history of western thought held that humans are fundamentally different from other animals…”
As you know Pascal was the inventor of the barometer and he lived from 1623 to 1662. Pascal also observed, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man,and only God can fill it.”
What is the solution? “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The scriptural directive is not for us to work harder to achieve God’s favor (Romans 3:20), but to accept God’s mercy through our repentance and receiving Christ as a free gift (Ephesians 2:8-10).
Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.
On the Shoulders of Giants: Steven Weinberg and the Quest to Explain the…
—
Steven Weinberg Discussion (1/8) – Richard Dawkins
—-
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? (2010) | Full Movie | Michael Hordern
——
The Bill Moyers Interview – Steven Weinberg
How Should We Then Live (1977) | Full Movie | Francis Schaeffer | Edith …
Steven Weinberg Discussion (2/8) – Richard Dawkins
RESPONDING TO HARRY KROTO’S BRILLIANT RENOWNED ACADEMICS!!
Steven Weinberg – Dreams of a Final Theory
—
Steven Weinberg Discussion (3/8) – Richard Dawkins
—
Steven Weinberg, Author
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 6 | The Scientific Age
—-
Steven Weinberg Discussion (4/8) – Richard Dawkins
I am grieved to hear of the death of Dr. Steven Weinberg who I have been familiar with since reading about him in 1979 in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? by Dr. C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer. I have really enjoyed reading his books and DREAMS OF A FINAL REALITY and TO EXPLAIN THE WORLD were two of my favorite!
C. Everett Koop
—-
Steven Weinberg Discussion (5/8) – Richard Dawkins
—
Francis Schaeffer : Reclaiming the World part 1, 2
The Atheism Tapes – Steven Weinberg [2/6]
—
The Story of Francis and Edith Schaeffer
—
Steven Weinberg – What Makes the Universe Fascinating?
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
_________________
Below you have picture of Dr. Harry Kroto:
______________
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
In the 1st video below in the 50th clip in this series are his words.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
_________________________________
Steven Weinberg: To Explain the World
I have a friend — or had a friend, now dead — Abdus Salam, a very devout Muslim, who was trying to bring science into the universities in the Gulf states and he told me that he had a terrible time because, although they were very receptive to technology, they felt that science would be a corrosive to religious belief, and they were worried about it… and damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive of religious belief, and it’s a good thing too.
The John Lennon and the Beatles really were on a long search for meaning and fulfillment in their lives just like King Solomon did in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon looked into learning (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). He fount that without God in the picture all […]
______________ George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]
The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]
___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]
Based on Sunday’s election in Italy, the nation’s next Prime Minister almost certainly will be Giorgia Meloni, which has some worried that Italy is returning to the “far right” fascism of Benito Mussolini.
From an economic perspective, though, it would be moreaccurate to say that Mussolini is “far left.”
In an article for the Independent Institute, Angelo Codevilla discussed how Mussolini began his career as a socialist activist, but ultimately was forced out of the party because of his nationalist views..
He was active in socialist circles, both Italian and international, giving speeches to workers and helping to organize strikes… He got to know Vladimir Lenin… Benito became a full-time socialist activist…as editor of its socialist newspaper. …he supported himself writing essays and editing a journal called Lotta di classe—class struggle…In 1911 the party entrusted the 28-year-old with editorship of its flagship publication, Avanti!. …He had become Italian socialism’s brightest star. …In…1914…he committed socialist heresy by writing that class struggle is a bad idea because the nation is more important than social class. He called his few scattered followers fasci, bundles, of individuals. …Hence he labeled the movement “Fasci Rivoluzionari d’Azione Internazionalista” and its members “Fascisti.” …the party expelled him.
In other words, Mussolini was part of the conflict between “national socialism” and “international socialism.”
Both versions of socialism favored big government, but they differed in how they viewed the nation state.
And this conflict, driven in part by the events of World War I, led Mussolini to develop fascism as a distinct strain of statism.
…continuing to call himself a socialist and propagandizing his evolving blend of nationalism and socialism…Mussolini shifted to building fascism into a party. …Hegel, following Napoleon, had made patriotic worship of the scientifically administered, progressive state the political essence of modernity. Mussolini’s vision of Italy followed from that. “The bureaucracy is the state,” he said. …Mussolini explained, …The state personifies the country, and disciplines its several elements to its service. “Soon, we will be the state.”
And he was right, at least in the sense that he and his fascists soon took over the government.
In the 1921 elections, Mussolini’s Fascists had gained only .04% of the vote. But chaos reigned in the streets because of socialist, Communist, and anarchist mobs, as well as because of the perhaps 40,000 fascist squadristi (the Blackshirts) who fought them. …Mussolini organized the descent of some 30,000 squadristi on Rome to demand he be named prime minister. …the king appointed Mussolini to head a government with almost no fascists. But…Mussolini gradually dispossessed the rest. …Fascist Italy was the first country in which the elected legislature gave up its essential powers to the executive…thus establishing the modern administrative state. …Socioeconomic organization was fascism’s defining feature. Only employers’ and employees’ organizations approved by the government were allowed. …No longer would corporations be responsible to owners.
Mussolini’s fascism was different than traditional socialism in that the goal was to have the government control the economy, but not to have government take over “the means of production.”
Both approaches were very hostile to free markets, of course.
I’ll close with some excerpts about Italian fascism and FDR’s failed New Deal.
After Franklin Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933, Mussolini’s enthusiasm for likening the New Deal to fascism’s political-economic order… he made clear that “the spirit of [FDR’s program] resembles fascism’s since, having recognized that the state is responsible for the people’s economic well-being, it no longer allows economic forces to run according to their own nature.” …Fascists rejoiced that FDR had forsaken liberal for corporativist principles… It could hardly have been otherwise since the essence of the National Industrial Recovery Act—the involuntary inclusion of all participants in categories of economic activity and their subjection to government-dictated prices, wages, and working conditions—was at least as detailed as those in fascism’s corporate law.
Since I’ve written about how the New Deal (and much of modern leftism) is based on fascist economics, I obviously agree.
But I’ve also explained that it’s better to refer to such policies as corporatist or interventionist since fascism nowadays also implies support for some of Hitler’s lunatic ideas about race and conquest.
P.S. The main message of today’s column is that it’s silly to label Mussolini (and his political heirs) as being on the far right. But it’s also true that Mussolini’s nationalist approach to statism is different than the ideas advocated by Marx (and his political heirs).
Dissecting and explaining these differences is why I think the left-right ideological spectrum should be replaced by this triangle.
By the way, the top of the triangle could say “Classical Liberalism,” but I used “Libertarian” so American readers would easily understand.
P.P.S. There’s a “Political Compass Test” that does a good job of determining one’s philosophical orientation, but it completely botches where Mussolini belongs.
The Incredible Steven Weinberg (1933-2021) – Sixty Symbols
—
EMAILED 3/30/19 TO DR. WEINBERG ON 35th ANNIVERSARY OF FRANCIS SCHAEFFER PASSING:
From Everette Hatcher of Little Rock, AR, Do you know ever meet any of these guys pictured?
On May 15, 1984 Francis Schaeffer passed away (35 years ago ) and on May 15, 1994, the tenth anniversary, I wrotealmost every living Nobel Prize winner (in Science categories) asking them if they could refute the nihilistic message of the song DUST IN THE WIND and I included a cassette tape. (Here is a copy of the letter I sent out to Dr. Stephen Jay Gould which was divided in 4 parts [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4] ). That tape started off with the 3 minute song DUST IN THE WIND by the rock group KANSAS and it was followed by the message by Adrian Rogers on Evolution. The song asserts, “All we do crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the wind, All we are is Dust in the wind.” In the light of evolution in a closed system, is Kerry Livgren the author of the song right about humans ultimate future?
ADRIAN ROGERS PICTURED AT WHITE HOUSE AFTER BEING ELECTED PRESIDENT OF SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
Edward O. Wilson in 1971
Francisco J. Ayala
Dr. Glauber, left, with Harvard physics colleague Gerald Holton in 2005.
Albert Ellis pictured above
Paul Kurtz
Peter Singer with Richard Dawkins
James Watson and Francis Crick in 1959
Thomas H. Jukes pictured above
On the Shoulders of Giants: Steven Weinberg and the Quest to Explain the…
—
Steven Weinberg Discussion (1/8) – Richard Dawkins
—-
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? (2010) | Full Movie | Michael Hordern
——
The Bill Moyers Interview – Steven Weinberg
How Should We Then Live (1977) | Full Movie | Francis Schaeffer | Edith …
Steven Weinberg Discussion (2/8) – Richard Dawkins
RESPONDING TO HARRY KROTO’S BRILLIANT RENOWNED ACADEMICS!!
Steven Weinberg – Dreams of a Final Theory
—
Steven Weinberg Discussion (3/8) – Richard Dawkins
—
Steven Weinberg, Author
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 6 | The Scientific Age
—-
Steven Weinberg Discussion (4/8) – Richard Dawkins
I am grieved to hear of the death of Dr. Steven Weinberg who I have been familiar with since reading about him in 1979 in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? by Dr. C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer. I have really enjoyed reading his books and DREAMS OF A FINAL REALITY and TO EXPLAIN THE WORLD were two of my favorite!
C. Everett Koop
—-
Steven Weinberg Discussion (5/8) – Richard Dawkins
—
Francis Schaeffer : Reclaiming the World part 1, 2
The Atheism Tapes – Steven Weinberg [2/6]
—
The Story of Francis and Edith Schaeffer
—
Steven Weinberg – What Makes the Universe Fascinating?
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
_________________
Below you have picture of Dr. Harry Kroto:
______________
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
In the 1st video below in the 50th clip in this series are his words.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
_________________________________
Steven Weinberg: To Explain the World
I have a friend — or had a friend, now dead — Abdus Salam, a very devout Muslim, who was trying to bring science into the universities in the Gulf states and he told me that he had a terrible time because, although they were very receptive to technology, they felt that science would be a corrosive to religious belief, and they were worried about it… and damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive of religious belief, and it’s a good thing too.
The John Lennon and the Beatles really were on a long search for meaning and fulfillment in their lives just like King Solomon did in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon looked into learning (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). He fount that without God in the picture all […]
______________ George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]
The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]
___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]
23 1-3 When dining with a rich man,[a] be on your guard and don’t stuff yourself, though it all tastes so good; for he is trying to bribe you, and no good is going to come of his invitation.
4-5 Don’t weary yourself trying to get rich. Why waste your time? For riches can disappear as though they had the wings of a bird!
6-8 Don’t associate with evil men; don’t long for their favors and gifts. Their kindness is a trick; they want to use you as their pawn. The delicious food they serve will turn sour in your stomach, and you will vomit it and have to take back your words of appreciation for their “kindness.”
9 Don’t waste your breath on a rebel. He will despise the wisest advice.
10-11 Don’t steal the land of defenseless orphans by moving their ancient boundary marks, for their Redeemer is strong; he himself will accuse you.
12 Don’t refuse to accept criticism; get all the help[b] you can.
13-14 Don’t fail to correct your children; discipline won’t hurt them! They won’t die if you use a stick on them! Punishment will keep them out of hell.
15-16 My son, how I will rejoice if you become a man of common sense. Yes, my heart will thrill to your thoughtful, wise words.
17-18 Don’t envy evil men but continue to reverence the Lord all the time, for surely you have a wonderful future ahead of you. There is hope for you yet!
19-21 O my son, be wise and stay in God’s paths; don’t carouse with drunkards and gluttons, for they are on their way to poverty. And remember that too much sleep clothes a man with rags. 22 Listen to your father’s advice and don’t despise an old mother’s experience. 23 Get the facts at any price, and hold on tightly to all the good sense you can get. 24-25 The father of a godly man has cause for joy—what pleasure a wise son is! So give your parents joy!
26-28 O my son, trust my advice—stay away from prostitutes. For a prostitute is a deep and narrow grave. Like a robber, she waits for her victims as one after another become unfaithful to their wives.
29-30 Whose heart is filled with anguish and sorrow? Who is always fighting and quarreling? Who is the man with bloodshot eyes and many wounds? It is the one who spends long hours in the taverns, trying out new mixtures. 31 Don’t let the sparkle and the smooth taste of strong wine deceive you. 32 For in the end it bites like a poisonous serpent; it stings like an adder. 33 You will see hallucinations and have delirium tremens, and you will say foolish, silly things that would embarrass you no end when sober. 34 You will stagger like a sailor tossed at sea, clinging to a swaying mast. 35 And afterwards you will say, “I didn’t even know it when they beat me up. . . . Let’s go and have another drink!”
—
I started this serieson my letters andpostcards toHugh Hefner backin September when I read of thepassing of Mr. Hefner. There are manymore to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite cities!!!!
Today is February 23 and I’m reading Proverbs chapter 23:
-28
A whore is a bottomless pit; a loose woman can get you in deep trouble fast. She’ll take you for all you’ve got; she’s worse than a pack of thieves.
__
29-35 Who are the people who are always crying the blues? Who do you know who reeks of self-pity? Who keeps getting beat up for no reason at all? Whose eyes are bleary and bloodshot? It’s those who spend the night with a bottle, for whom drinking is serious business. Don’t judge wine by its label, or its bouquet, or its full-bodied flavor. Judge it rather by the hangover it leaves you with— the splitting headache, the queasy stomach. Do you really prefer seeing double, with your speech all slurred, Reeling and seasick, drunk as a sailor? “They hit me,” you’ll say, “but it didn’t hurt; they beat on me, but I didn’t feel a thing. When I’m sober enough to manage it, bring me another drink!”
King Solomon in the Book of Proverbs takes a long look at the 6 L words and LIQUOR and LADIES are two of those words he looked into in the Book of Ecclesiastes!!!!
He looked into learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).
v. 1 I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.[i]2 I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?”3 I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life.
v. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines,[j] the delight of the sons of man. v 10-11 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
Solomon’s experiment was a search for meaning to life “under the sun.” Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”
I wrote to Hefner in an earlier letter these words:
Francis Schaeffer observed concerning Solomon, “You can not know woman by knowing 1000 women.”
_______
THIS ARTICLE BELOW MAKES A GREAT POINT ABOUT MILLIE’S BETRAYAL AND HOW IT AFFECTED HEF, BUT SHOULD THAT CAUSE HEF TO ENCOURAGE MORE BETRAYALS OF TRUST?, I READ HEF’S BIOGRAPHY AND I SAW HOW HE LED HIS LIFE AND IT WAS FILLED WITH BETRAYAL OF TRUST!!!
So let’s put together the pieces of the Hugh Hefner puzzle that was at the heart of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), which grew out of my earlier GetReligion post, “The crucial ‘M’ word — Methodist – that needed to be in every Hugh Hefner obituary.”
This is a journalism puzzle, but one rooted in theology.
Start with Hugh Hefner’s frequent references to his Puritan heritage (with a large “P” and a small “p”). Then you add the details of Methodist faith in which he was raised, in the conservative Midwest of the late 1940s and ’50s. We need more than the word “strict.”
Then you add the remarkable detail that Hefner was a virgin on his wedding day (with the help, he stressed, of lots of foreplay). In other words, young Hefner thought that true love waits. Ponder that.
Only he learned, as a married man, that his fiance had not waited. She had been unfaithful while he was away in the Army. In its lengthy Hefner obituary, The New York Times noted:
A virgin until he was 22, he married his longtime girlfriend. Her confession to an earlier affair, Mr. Hefner told an interviewer almost 50 years later, was “the single most devastating experience of my life.”
The Los Angeles Times added, literally, the doctrinal fallout from this event, in terms of the moral theology written into the Playboy philosophy.
Years later he said the experience set him up for a lifetime of promiscuity because “if you don’t commit,” he told The Times in 1994, “you don’t get hurt.” He said it also showed him what was wrong with traditional attitudes towards sex: “Thinking sex is sacred is the first step toward really turning it into something very ugly,” he said on another occasion.
Put all that together and you have what? Is this a “secular” story, as in a story devoid of faith content and issues? You can make a case that the old Hefner, after this crushing blow during his first marriage, died and then he sought escape from his past, seeking to rise again as a new and changed man – the ultimate playboy.
One more thing: Is it a “secular” story that Hefner openly stated that his goal in life was to knock down centuries of Judeo-Christian teachings on sexuality?
What’s my point? There are all kinds of newsworthy subjects linked to Hefner’s gospel of sex and trendy consumerism.
One of the biggest subjects – for modern religious groups – is the omnipresent role that porn plays in the lives of legions of men, including those in pews and pulpits. The statistics are stunning. Check out this Christianity Today feature – “Porn and the new normal” – on this side of Hefner’s legacy. At the same time, divorce culture looms over the lives of millions of children and, often, the church is afraid to address this reality.
However, I remain fascinated (“haunted” might be a better word) with that stunning, soul-shattering twist that took place when the young Hefner learned his wife had been unfaithful during their engagement.
So far, I have found only one newspaper story focusing on that angle – The Sun over in the U.K. Frankly, I’d kind of like to see the subject addressed in a non-tabloid (think Page 3 girls) format. Still the facts are strong, even presented in this format:
It was the betrayal a young Hefner suffered at the hands of his first wife that marked his formative years and one that he went on to describe as “the most devastating moment” of his life.
He married Mildred Williams in 1949 in the belief the pair had ‘saved themselves’ for one another. The couple had met at college in the mid 40s.
Little did Chicago-born Hefner know that his beloved Milly had slept with another man while her beau served in the US military during the Second World War.
Explaining his heartbreak, he said: “I think the relationship was probably held together by two years of foreplay.
“That wasn’t unusual for our time. In fact, most of my immediate friends didn’t have sex until they married. Milly and I had it just before. I had literally saved myself for my wife, but after we had sex she told me that she’d had an affair. That was the most devastating moment in my life.
“My wife was more sexually experienced than I was. After that, I always felt in a sense that the other guy was in bed with us, too.”
Hefner was determined to change the rules after that, through the birth of Playboy magazine. Meanwhile, the Hefners divorced in 1959, with two children – Christie and David.
There was no looking back after that, at least not that Hefner talked about. The old faith was gone and he dedicated his life to a new one.
Is that a secular story?
GETTY
COURTESY PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES
PAUL ARCHULETA/FILMMAGIC
RICH SCHMITT/AFP/GETTY
These comments below are from Francis Schaeffer’ study on Ecclesiastes and they reminded me of Hugh Hefner who was the closest person to a modern day King Solomon:
In Ecclesiastes 1:8 he drives this home when he states, “All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing.” Solomon is stating here the fact that there is no final satisfaction because you don’t get to the end of the thing. THERE IS NO FINAL SATISFACTION. This is related to Leonardo da Vinci’s similar search for universals and then meaning in life.
In Ecclesiastes 5:11 Solomon again pursues this theme, “When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to look on?” Doesn’t that sound modern? It is as modern as this evening. Solomon here is stating the fact there is no reaching completion in anything and this is the reason there is no final satisfaction. There is simply no place to stop. It is impossible when laying up wealth for oneself when to stop. It is impossible to have the satisfaction of completion.
_____
Hefner experienced great success with his PLAYBOY MAGAZINE, but the fame, fortune, and ladies that came with it did not give Hefner ultimate satisfaction.
He was the ultimate ladies’ man but sadly never found The One
Hugh Hefner was, without a doubt, the ULTIMATE ladies’ man.
But after years of looking for love in all the wrong places, the Playboy founder admitted that he never found his soulmate.
Despite three marriages and forever being surrounded by a bevy of bikini-clad Playboy bunnies, poor Hef never really knew true love.
The publishing magnate died of natural causes on Wednesday at the age of 91, surrounded by his loved ones at the Playboy mansion.
But back in 1992, he told the New York Times: “I’ve spent so much of my life looking for love in all the wrong places.”
And then at age 85, he said: “I never really found my soulmate.”
Hef married three times: his college sweetheart Mildred Williams in 1949, Playmate Kimberley Conrad in 1989, and Crystal Harris – 61 years his junior – in 2012.
And aside from that, he’s bragged about bedding more than 1,000 women.
It’s even been claimed that he had his pick of the bunnies living at his mansion every night, and he was known to regularly have multiple girlfriends at the same time.
________
Hefner was married with kids twice and both times he left the marriages and embraced the playboy lifestyle.
Ecclesiastes 2-3 Published on Sep 19, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 16, 2012 | Derek Neider _____________________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular […]
Is Love All You Need? Jesus v. Lennon Posted on January 19, 2011 by Jovan Payes 0 On June 25, 1967, the Beatles participated in the first worldwide TV special called “Our World”. During this special, the Beatles introduced “All You Need is Love”; one of their most famous and recognizable songs. In it, John Lennon […]
___________________ Something happened to the Beatles in their journey through the 1960’s and although they started off wanting only to hold their girlfriend’s hand it later evolved into wanting to smash all previous sexual standards. The Beatles: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? _______ Beatle Ringo Starr, and his girlfriend, later his wife, […]
__________ Marvin Minsky __ I was sorry recently to learn of the passing of one of the great scholars of our generation. I have written about Marvin Minsky several times before in this series and today I again look at a letter I wrote to him in the last couple of years. It is my […]
Why was Tony Curtis on the cover of SGT PEPPERS? I have no idea but if I had to hazard a guess I would say that probably it was because he was in the smash hit SOME LIKE IT HOT. Above from the movie SOME LIKE IT HOT __ __ Jojo was a man who […]
__ Francis Schaeffer did not shy away from appreciating the Beatles. In fact, SERGEANT PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND album was his favorite and he listened to it over and over. I am a big fan of Francis Schaeffer but there are detractors that attack him because he did not have all the degrees that they […]
On 11-15-05 Adrian Rogers passed over to glory and since it is the 10th anniversary of that day I wanted to celebrate his life in two ways. First, I wanted to pass on some of the material from Adrian Rogers’ sermons I have sent to prominent atheists over the last 20 years. Second, I wanted […]
Looking back on his life as a Beatle Paul said at a certain age you start to think “Wow, I have to get serious. I can’t just be a playboy all of my life.” It is true that the Beatles wrote a lot about girls!!!!!! The Beatles – I Want To Hold your Hand [HD] Although […]
Does anyone still believe that science can explain, well, everything? This belief was ascendant in the 1980s, when my career began. Bigshot scientists proclaimed that they were solving the riddle of existence. They would soon explain why our universe exists and takes the form it does, and why we exist and are what we are.
For years I believed this claim, out of deference to scientists propagating it and desire to believe. The vision of a revelation to end all revelations thrilled me. Eventually I had doubts, which I spelled out in The End of Scienceand other writings. Lately, I’ve begun to look at the vision of total knowledge as a laughable delusion, a pathological fantasy that should never have been taken seriously, even though brilliant scientists propagated it.
Stephen Hawking was the most influential know-it-all. In his 1988 mega-bestseller A Brief History of Time, Hawking predicted that physicists would soon find an “ultimate theory” that would explain how our cosmos came into being. He compared this achievement to knowing “the mind of God.” This statement was ironic. Hawking, an atheist, wanted science to eliminate the need for a divine creator.
I’ve often suspected that Hawking, who had a wicked sense of humor, was goofing when he talked about an “ultimate theory.” The success of Brief History nonetheless inspired lots of similar books by physicists, including Theories of Everything by John Barrow (1991), The Mind of God by Paul Davies (1992) and Dreams of a Final Theory by Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg.
Weinberg, a deadly serious man, was definitely not kidding when he envisioned a final theory. He argued that with the help of a new “supercollider” in Texas (which ended up being canceled), physicists might soon “bring to an end a certain kind of science, the ancient search for those principles that cannot be explained in terms of deeper principles.”
Like Hawking, Weinberg hoped that the final theory would crush, once and for all, our superstitious faith in an all-powerful, beneficent deity. “It would be wonderful to find in the laws of nature a plan, prepared by a concerned creator in which human being played some special role,” Weinberg wrote. “I find sadness in doubting that they will.”
Physicists were not the only scientists bewitched by the dream of omniscience. “I take the position that there is nothing that cannot be understood,” Peter Atkins, a religion-bashing British chemist, stated in his 1981 book The Creation. “Fundamental science may almost be at an end and might be completed within a generation.” He added, “Complete knowledge is just within our grasp. Comprehension is moving across the face of the Earth, like the sunrise.”
Then there was biologist Richard Dawkins, who declared in his 1986 bestseller The Blind Watchmaker that the mystery of life had already been solved. Our existence “once presented the greatest of mysteries,” Dawkins wrote, but “it is a mystery no longer, because it is solved. Darwin and Wallace solved it, though we shall continue to add footnotes to their solution for a while yet.”
One of those “footnotes” concerns the problem of consciousness. In the late 1980s Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the double helix (and another hard-core atheist), proposed that consciousness, the subject of interminable philosophical speculation, might be scientifically tractable. Science could “solve” consciousness by finding its “neural correlates,” processes in the brain that correspond to conscious states.
In his 1994 book The Astonishing Hypothesis, Crick declared that “’you,’ your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of neurons.” That statement might have been the high water mark of scientism and its corollaries, materialism and reductionism.
Meanwhile, researchers were claiming that advances in computers and mathematics were illuminating chaotic and complex phenomena that had resisted traditional scientific analysis. These scientists, whom I like to call chaoplexologists, were finding common principles underpinning brains, immune systems, ecologies and nation-states. Economics and other social sciences would soon become as rigorous as chemistry and nuclear physics. Supposedly.
To be charitable, all this hubris wasn’t entirely unjustified. After all, in the 1960s physicists confirmed the big bang theory and took steps toward a unified theory of all of nature’s forces, while biologists deciphered the genetic code. You can see how these and other successes, as well as advances in computers and other tools, might have persuaded optimists that total scientific knowledge was imminent.
But the concept of scientific omniscience always suffered from fatal flaws. Read Brief History and other books carefully and you realize that the quest for an ultimate theory had taken physicists beyond the realm of experiment. String theory and other major candidates for an ultimate theory of physics can be neither experimentally confirmed nor falsified. They are untestable and hence not really scientific.
Let’s say physicists convince themselves that string theory is in fact the final theory, which encodes the fundamental laws from which nature springs. Theorists must still explain where those laws came from, just as believers in God must explain where He came from. This is the problem of infinite regress, which bedevils all who try to explain why there is something rather than nothing.
As for life, Dawkins’s claim that it is no longer a mystery is absurd. In spite of all the advances in biology since Darwin, we still don’t have a clue how life began, or whether it exists elsewhere in the cosmos. We don’t know whether our emergence was likely or a once-in-eternity fluke.
Brain scientists still have no idea how our brains make us conscious, and even if they did, that knowledge would apply only to human consciousness. It would not yield a general theory of consciousness, which determines what sort of physical systems generate conscious states. It would not tell us whether it feels like something to be a bat, nematode or smart phone. As I argue in my new book Mind-Body Problems, science appears farther than ever from understanding the mind.
There may still be a few true believers in scientific omniscience out there. Big Data boosters indulge in hype reminiscent of the heyday of chaoplexity (although the phrase “social science” remains as oxymoronic as ever). And in his 2011 book On Being, Peter Atkins, who is now 79, reiterated his “faith” that “there is nothing that the scientific method cannot illuminate and elucidate.” But I doubt many scientists share this view any more.
Over the last decade or two, science has lost its mojo. The replication crisis has undermined the public’s confidence in scientists, and scientists’ confidence in themselves. It has made them humble–and that is a good thing. Because what if scientists had somehow convinced themselves, and the rest of us, that they had figured everything out? What a tragedy that would be. We’re better off in our current state of befuddlement, trying to comprehend this weird, weird world even though we know we’ll always fall short.
The older I get, the more I appreciate what philosopher Paul Feyerabend said to me in 1992 when I broached the possibility of total knowledge. “You think that this one-day fly, this little bit of nothing, a human being–according to today’s cosmology!–can figure it all out?” he asked me with a manic grin. “This to me seems so crazy! It cannot possibly be true! What they figured out is one particular response to their actions, and this response gives this universe, and the reality that is behind this is laughing! ‘Ha ha! They think they have found me out!’”
I’ll close with a quote from Philip Anderson, a Nobel laureate in physics and leading chaoplexologist. When I interviewed him in 1994, Anderson derided the claims of some of his fellow scientists that they could solve the riddle of reality. “You never understand everything,” Anderson said. “When one understands everything, one has gone crazy.”
On the Shoulders of Giants: Steven Weinberg and the Quest to Explain the…
—
Steven Weinberg Discussion (1/8) – Richard Dawkins
—-
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? (2010) | Full Movie | Michael Hordern
——
The Bill Moyers Interview – Steven Weinberg
How Should We Then Live (1977) | Full Movie | Francis Schaeffer | Edith …
Steven Weinberg Discussion (2/8) – Richard Dawkins
RESPONDING TO HARRY KROTO’S BRILLIANT RENOWNED ACADEMICS!!
Steven Weinberg – Dreams of a Final Theory
—
Steven Weinberg Discussion (3/8) – Richard Dawkins
—
Steven Weinberg, Author
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 6 | The Scientific Age
—-
Steven Weinberg Discussion (4/8) – Richard Dawkins
I am grieved to hear of the death of Dr. Steven Weinberg who I have been familiar with since reading about him in 1979 in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? by Dr. C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer. I have really enjoyed reading his books and DREAMS OF A FINAL REALITY and TO EXPLAIN THE WORLD were two of my favorite!
C. Everett Koop
—-
Steven Weinberg Discussion (5/8) – Richard Dawkins
—
Francis Schaeffer : Reclaiming the World part 1, 2
The Atheism Tapes – Steven Weinberg [2/6]
—
The Story of Francis and Edith Schaeffer
—
Steven Weinberg – What Makes the Universe Fascinating?
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
_________________
Below you have picture of Dr. Harry Kroto:
______________
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
In the 1st video below in the 50th clip in this series are his words.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
_________________________________
Steven Weinberg: To Explain the World
I have a friend — or had a friend, now dead — Abdus Salam, a very devout Muslim, who was trying to bring science into the universities in the Gulf states and he told me that he had a terrible time because, although they were very receptive to technology, they felt that science would be a corrosive to religious belief, and they were worried about it… and damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive of religious belief, and it’s a good thing too.
The John Lennon and the Beatles really were on a long search for meaning and fulfillment in their lives just like King Solomon did in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon looked into learning (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). He fount that without God in the picture all […]
______________ George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]
The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]
___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]
The Incredible Steven Weinberg (1933-2021) – Sixty Symbols
—
February 10, 2020
Professor Steven Weinberg
The University of Texas at Austin
Department of Physics
2515 Speedway Stop C1600
Austin, TX 78712-1192
Dear Dr. Weinberg,
I wrote you about 6 months ago about your views as a Humanist and the view that we are a result of time and chance. Today I want to talk to you about situational ethics.
Since you have chosen to be identified as a humanist, I wanted to quote from the Humanist Manifesto 2 and 3 and ask you a question about humanistic situational ethics.
Humanist Manifesto 2 (written in 1973) states:
SECOND: Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful.
Humanist Manifesto 2 asserts that our moral choices should not be based on a fear of hell, and Humanist Manifesto 3 (written in 2003) states that our moral choices should be instead based on situational ethics:
Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience.Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond.
Humanist Manifesto 2 further states:
THIRD: We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction.
As a Christian I believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God and as such it gives us an absolute authority to follow. However, lets take a look at your situation ethics approach for a moment.
Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS , is an excellent movie that demonstrates the need of God while making decisions in the area of personal morality. In this film, Allen attacks his own atheistic view of morality. Martin Landau plays a Jewish eye doctor named Judah Rosenthal raised by a religious father who always told him, “The eyes of God are always upon you.” However, Judah later concludes that God doesn’t exist. He has his mistress (played in the film by Anjelica Huston) murdered because she continually threatened to blow the whistle on his past questionable, probably illegal, business activities. She also attempted to break up Judah ‘s respectable marriage by going public with their two-year affair. Judah struggles with his conscience throughout the remainder of the movie.
Later in the film, Judah reflects on the conversation his religious father had with Judah ‘s unbelieving Aunt May at the dinner table many years ago:
“Come on Sol, open your eyes. Six million Jews burned to death by the Nazis, and they got away with it because might makes right,” says aunt May
Sol replies, “May, how did they get away with it?”
Judah asks, “If a man kills, then what?”
Sol responds to his son, “Then in one way or another he will be punished.”
Aunt May comments, “I say if he can do it and get away with it and he chooses not to be bothered by the ethics, then he is home free.”
Judah ‘s final conclusion was that might did make right. He observed that one day, because of this conclusion, he woke up and the cloud of guilt was gone. He was, as his aunt said, “home free.”
Woody Allen has exposed a weakness in his own humanistic view that God is not necessary as a basis for good ethics. There must be an enforcement factor in order to convince Judah not to resort to murder. Otherwise, it is fully to Judah ‘s advantage to remove this troublesome woman from his life.
Larry King actually mentioned on his show, LARRY KING LIVE, that Chuck Colson had discussed the movie CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS with him. Colson asked King if life was just a Darwinian struggle where the ruthless come out on top. Colson continued, “When we do wrong, is that our only choice? Either live tormented by guilt, or else kill our conscience and live like beasts?” (BREAKPOINT COMMENTARY, “Finding Common Ground,” September 14, 1993)
The Bible tells us, “{God} has also set eternity in the hearts of men…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV). The secularist calls this an illusion, but the Bible tells us that the idea that we will survive the grave was planted in everyone’s heart by God Himself. Romans 1:19-21 tells us that God has instilled a conscience in everyone that points each of them to Him and tells them what is right and wrong (also Romans 2:14 -15). Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.”
It’s no wonder, then, that one of Allen’s fellow humanists would comment, “Certain moral truths — such as do not kill, do not steal, and do not lie — do have a special status of being not just ‘mere opinion’ but bulwarks of humanitarian action. I have no intention of saying, ‘I think Hitler was wrong.’ Hitler WAS wrong.” (Gloria Leitner, “A Perspective on Belief,” THE HUMANIST, May/June 1997, pp. 38-39)
Here Leitner is reasoning from her God-given conscience and not from humanist philosophy. It wasn’t long before she received criticism. Humanist Abigail Ann Martin responded, “Neither am I an advocate of Hitler; however, by whose criteria is he evil?” (THE HUMANIST, September/October 1997, p. 2)
The Humanist can only give incomplete answers to these questions: How could you have convinced Judah not to kill? On what basis could you convince Judah it was wrong for him to murder? WHAT IN YOUR SYSTEM OF “SITUATION ETHICS” COULD HAVE DONE THE JOB?
As a Christian, I would agree with Judah ‘s father that “The eyes of God are always upon us.” Proverbs 5:21 asserts, “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his paths.” Revelation 20:12 states, “…And the dead were judged (sentenced) by what they had done (their whole way of feeling and acting, their aims and endeavors) in accordance with what was recorded in the books” (Amplified Version). The Bible is revealed truth from God. It is the basis for our morality.
——
I had the unique opportunity to discuss this very issue with Robert Lester Mondale and his wife Rosemary on April 14, 1996 at his cabin in Fredricktown, Missouri , and my visit was very enjoyable and informative. Mr. Mondale had the distinction of being the only person to sign all three of the Humanist Manifestos in 1933, 1973 and 2003.
Lester Mondale told me about a Lutheran pastor friend who told him in 1945 about his visit to see the death camps in Europe that were liberated by American troops.
I asked, “If those Nazis escaped to Brazil or Argentina and lived out their lives in peace would they face judgment after they died?”
Mondale responded, “I don’t think there is anything after death.”
I told Mr. Mondale that there is a sense in me that says justice will be given eventually and God will judge those Nazis even if they evade punishment here on earth. I did point out that in Ecclesiastes 4:1 Solomon did note that without God in the picture the scales may not be balanced in this life and power could reign, but at the same time the Bible teaches that all must face the ultimate Judge.
Then I asked him if he got to watch the O.J. Simpson trial and he said that he did and he thought that the prosecution had plenty of evidence too. Again I asked Mr. Mondale the same question concerning O.J. and he responded, “I don’t think there is a God that will intervene and I don’t believe in the afterlife.”
The Bible teaches that there is an afterlife, but is the Bible reliable?
The Bible is affirmed through historical accuracy. Do you remember the story about the handwriting on the wall that is found in the fifth chapter of Daniel? Belshazzar hosted a feast with a thousand of his lords and ladies. Suddenly, a gruesome hand appeared out of nowhere and began to write on a wall. The king was disturbed and asked for someone to interpret the writing. Daniel was found and gave the interpretation. After the interpretation, “Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.” (Daniel 5:29). Basing their opinion on Babylonian records, the historians claim this never happened. According to the records, the last king of Babylon was not Belshazzar, but a man named Nabonidas. And so, they said, the Bible is in error. There wasn’t a record of a king named Belshazzar. Well, the spades of archeologists continued to do their work. In 1853, an inscription was found on a cornerstone of a temple built by Nabonidas, to the god Ur, which read: “May I, Nabonidas, king of Babylon, not sin against thee. And may reverence for thee dwell in the heart of Belshazzar, my first-born favorite son.” From other inscriptions, it was learned that Belshazzar and Nabonidas were co-regents. Nabonidas traveled while Belshazzar stayed home to run the kingdom. Now that we know that Belshazzar and Nabonidas were co-regents, it makes sense that Belshazzar would say that Daniel would be the third ruler.
On the Shoulders of Giants: Steven Weinberg and the Quest to Explain the…
—
Steven Weinberg Discussion (1/8) – Richard Dawkins
—-
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? (2010) | Full Movie | Michael Hordern
——
The Bill Moyers Interview – Steven Weinberg
How Should We Then Live (1977) | Full Movie | Francis Schaeffer | Edith …
Steven Weinberg Discussion (2/8) – Richard Dawkins
RESPONDING TO HARRY KROTO’S BRILLIANT RENOWNED ACADEMICS!!
Steven Weinberg – Dreams of a Final Theory
—
Steven Weinberg Discussion (3/8) – Richard Dawkins
—
Steven Weinberg, Author
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 6 | The Scientific Age
—-
Steven Weinberg Discussion (4/8) – Richard Dawkins
I am grieved to hear of the death of Dr. Steven Weinberg who I have been familiar with since reading about him in 1979 in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? by Dr. C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer. I have really enjoyed reading his books and DREAMS OF A FINAL REALITY and TO EXPLAIN THE WORLD were two of my favorite!
C. Everett Koop
—-
Steven Weinberg Discussion (5/8) – Richard Dawkins
—
Francis Schaeffer : Reclaiming the World part 1, 2
The Atheism Tapes – Steven Weinberg [2/6]
—
The Story of Francis and Edith Schaeffer
—
Steven Weinberg – What Makes the Universe Fascinating?
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
_________________
Below you have picture of Dr. Harry Kroto:
______________
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
In the 1st video below in the 50th clip in this series are his words.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
_________________________________
Steven Weinberg: To Explain the World
I have a friend — or had a friend, now dead — Abdus Salam, a very devout Muslim, who was trying to bring science into the universities in the Gulf states and he told me that he had a terrible time because, although they were very receptive to technology, they felt that science would be a corrosive to religious belief, and they were worried about it… and damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive of religious belief, and it’s a good thing too.
The John Lennon and the Beatles really were on a long search for meaning and fulfillment in their lives just like King Solomon did in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon looked into learning (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). He fount that without God in the picture all […]
______________ George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]
The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]
___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]
Sixty-five on-duty members of the FDNY lost their first-responder fathers in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, or watched them die of diseases caused by toxic smoke and debris at Ground Zero.
These young Bravest — including three women — decided to honor their fathers’ courage and sacrifice by following in their paths.
“Knowing what happened that day, it just shows their bravery and willingness to face those challenges,” FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said of these legacies — the sons and daughters of firefighters and officers killed in the line of duty. Some were as young as 5 or 6 years old on 9/11.
Twenty years after the horror of that day, many of them posed for a portrait and shared favorite memories of their dads as they explained why they could not resist the FDNY’s siren call.
Many say working in the same job — sometimes in the same firehouse and wearing the same badge number as their dads — feels like having a guardian angel watch over them.
FDNY legacy: Anthony RagagliaHero father: Leonard Ragaglia Sr.
Anthony Ragaglia wears a tattoo on his left arm that shows what he shared with his father, Leonard Ragaglia, and what he lost on 9/11 at age 7.
<img class="i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer" role="presentation" src="data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Leonard RagagliaCourtesy of FDNY
Puzzle pieces that fit his dad’s portrait depict baseball and hockey, the teams his dad coached, the video games they played together, and “the toy car he pushed me around in.” Broken pieces show Anthony’s 8th birthday, basketball, weight lifting, high school and college graduation.
“He was a very loving family man,” the 27-year-old recalls. “The thing I remember the most is waiting for him to come home from work and jumping on him when he came in.”
Once pondering a career in the sports world, Anthony graduated from Mount Saint Mary College determined to become a firefighter to honor his dad and “make him happy.”
Facing the prospect of another life-threatening crisis like 9/11 caused no hesitation, he said. “I kind of put it aside. It’s the dangers that come with the job.”
Now assigned to Engine 217 in Brooklyn, he has no regrets. “I love how everyone’s part of a family, and everything you do together you do as a team.”
Anthony’s brother, Leonard Ragaglia, Jr., 30, started his career as an NYPD officer, but graduated from the Fire Academy at the same time, in September 2019. Leonard is assigned to his father’s Engine 54 in Midtown, which lost 15 members on 9/11 — more than any other firehouse in the city.
FDNY legacy: John Bergin Hero father: John P. Bergin
It could be any child’s dream to spend the day in a firehouse, ride an engine with lights and sirens and eat supper with the firefighters in their raucous kitchen. That’s what John Bergin did as a boy.
<img class="i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer" role="presentation" src="data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />John P. BerginCourtesy of FDNY
“My coolest memories are going to work with him,” John said of his father, John P. Bergin, of Rescue 5 in Staten Island.
“Every once in a while, in the summer, on weekends or a holiday, I got randomly woken in the morning and went to work with him for the day. I went on the runs, but had to stay on the rig. I’ve seen him dive in the water. I’ve seen him go to fires.” He helped with chores. “We’d go out and shop for the meal, and everyone cooked together. Like a big family.”
John was 9 years old on 9/11 when his father, 39, and 10 fellow Rescue 5 firefighters responded to the World Trade Center call and never came home.
The late father of three loved the job and the family life it let him enjoy. “He just seemed happy, like there was nothing better in the world,” John said. “That pretty much locked it in for me, what I wanted to do.”
At 29, John wears his father’s badge, No. 6359, at Ladder 157 in Flatbush.
FDNY legacy: Chris HowardHero father: George Howard
<img class="i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer" role="presentation" src="data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Chris Howard
The Port Authority Police badge, No. 1012, that Chris Howard treasures is a duplicate.
That’s because the original one belonging to his dad, emergency services specialist George Howard, spent eight years in a US president’s pocket.
<img class="i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer" role="presentation" src="data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />George Howard
“When President Bush came into town, on Sept. 14, he wanted to meet with everybody who had [family members] confirmed missing or killed in action,” Chris Howard said.
His father, a 16-year Port Authority veteran and a volunteer fire captain in their hometown of Hicksville, LI, had the day off on Sept. 11, but he rushed to the World Trade Center to assist. He was killed when the North Tower fell. Chris was 18.
“We brought the badge down and my grandmother … pressed it into George’s, President Bush’s, hand,” Howard, now 38, said. “And then for the rest of his presidency he always had the badge on him.”
Then-Rep. Peter King (R-NY) “would call him out, say ‘Where’s the badge?’” Howard said. “And he always had it in his pocket.”
Today, George Howard’s badge is on display at the Bush Presidential Library in Dallas, Texas — and George Howard’s son is a firefighter with Ladder 157 in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
“I think he always wanted to be a fireman, that’s why he became an ESU cop,” Chris mused. “So I hope he’s looking down and laughing.”
FDNY legacy: Emmet MeehanHero father: Edward Meehan
“I was in a weird state of mind after he died, a little bit of depression, I guess,” said Emmet Meehan, 30. “I had no direction, no purpose. The Fire Department was the structure I needed.”
<img class="i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer" role="presentation" src="data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Edward T. Meehan
Meehan took the Fire Department test “for the hell of it” in 2017 after abandoning his life in California to be with his dad, Lt. Edward Meehan, who had been diagnosed with cancer as a result of his rescue efforts on 9/11.
“I was with him those last two or three months every day,” Meehan said. “We always were close, but when you’re facing death it’s like anything you were holding back is going out the window. That’s a time I cherish a lot.”
Edward Meehan died in February 2018, just six months after his diagnosis, as his son’s test was being graded. “He had no idea I would join the department. It wasn’t a thought at all,” Meehan said.
A prayer card from his dad’s funeral — bearing a photo of Ed from his days as a probie and another with his beloved Engine 45 truck — is tucked into Meehan’s helmet as he works at Ladder 34 in Washington Heights.
“I’m just keeping him with me,” he said.
FDNY legacies: Erik Wieber and Chris Wieber Hero father: Robert J. Wieber
The brothers’ dad, Robert J. Wieber, a firefighter at Engine 262 in Astoria, Queens, developed a rare non-Hodgkin lymphoma brain cancer as a result of his rescue and recovery work at the World Trade Center. He was 50 when he died in 2006.
“I guess you could say we were fortunate enough to have a couple more years with him,” Chris said. “But eventually it got him.”
Chris, now 33, always planned to become a firefighter, but Erik — his elder by two years — took a more circuitous route.
“I was doing accounting and it just wasn’t working out for me,” Erik recalled. “My dad, he loved his job, so that’s what made me want to change.”
Carl Kumpel was only 8 years old when his father Kenneth, a firefighter with Ladder 25 on the Upper West Side, died in the collapse of the South Tower — but his colleagues’ response made a lasting impression.
“I became a firefighter because there’s so much camaraderie,” he said. “Especially after 9/11, I saw how much they came together and helped our family out.”
Carl, now 28, swore in as a Fire Department probie in 2017. Two years later his older brother Greg, 30, followed suit. Today, they work in neighboring Harlem firehouses — Carl at Engine 37, Greg at Engine 80 — 14 blocks apart.
“I saw just how much fun he was having and how much he truly loved and was passionate about the job,” Greg said.
He finds the work enormously satisfying.
“You get called to something, and the adrenaline’s up,” Greg said. “But then there’s that moment when you get to reflect and realize what you did and the impact that you have on people’s lives on a daily basis.”
Their mother, Nancy Kumpel, is a bit less enthusiastic, they admit with knowing laughs.
“She’s a little nervous, but she’s very proud of both of us,” Carl said.
“Yeah, I’d say my mom is 10 percent nervous, 90 percent very happy,” his brother agreed.
FDNY legacy: James DowdellHero father: Kevin C. Dowdell
“This is the only thing we ever recovered from him down there,” said James Dowdell, hefting a heavy Halligan tool in his hands.
The initials “KD” soldered onto the head of the multipurpose pry bar makes it instantly recognizable: It belonged to Lt. Kevin C. Dowdell, James’ father, who raced to the World Trade Center with his unit, Rescue 4 from Woodside, Queens. Six members of the squad were killed.
“It got to us in early October of ‘01,” Dowdell, now 37, said. “We never found his body, but … as a family, I guess, we took it as our memento of him.”
He and his brother Patrick, 39, have cherished the tool that somehow survived the South Tower collapse — even whisking it to safety from the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy, which flooded Patrick’s home in Breezy Point, Queens.
Kevin Dowdell’s heroics with Rescue 4 included national recognition for his recovery efforts in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. Today, James Dowdell works at another of the city’s elite companies, Brooklyn’s Rescue 2.
“Being a firefighter does make me feel closer to my father,” he said. “It makes me proud to put on the same uniform he died for.”
FDNY legacy: Robert WallaceHero father: Robert F. Wallace
“Sometimes I’ve been in situations on the job when I’ve talked to him, you know, ‘point me the way, show me what to do,’” firefighter Robert Wallace said. “It’s a real confidence booster to feel like he’s with me.”
Wallace, 39, the son, grandson, and great-grandson of New York City firefighters, has spent his entire 14-year career at Engine 275 in Jamaica, Queens. The “War Wagon” responded to 715 fires in 2019, making it one of the city’s most active engine companies.
“I was very, very fortunate to land a spot here,” Wallace said. “As a fireman you want to be busy. I love it, never a dull moment.”
His dad, he said, was “a whack job” with “the biggest sense of humor” — known for his habit of gazing and pointing up at the sky until friends and random strangers craned their necks to see what he was looking at (which was never anything at all).
“After he died, guys from his firehouse down at the [World Trade Center] site would take pictures of each other, pointing up,” Wallace said. “Just to remember him.”
FDNY legacy: Terence PfeiferHero father: Raymond J. Pfeifer
Terence Pfeifer tucks two prayer cards from his father’s wake into his FDNY helmet. One shows a vigorous Ray Pfeifer at a fire. “F–k cancer,” is written over the picture.
“He would say it a lot. He would make light of it,” his son said.
On the morning of 9/11, Ray was golfing with other off-duty firefighters when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. They grabbed gear at their firehouse, Engine 40, Ladder 35, near Lincoln Center, and raced to Ground Zero.
Ray spent the next eight months digging through toxic rubble for victim remains. Diagnosed with advanced kidney cancer eight years later, he died in 2017 from the disease that ravaged his body.
“I’m a lucky guy,” Ray Pfeifer told The Post in 2015. “I’ve had 15 years with my kids after 9/11, and I’m still here with Stage 4 cancer.”
Terence, 29, dwells on happy times when his dad pitched for his firehouse softball team. “I just remember how fun that was. A lot of the guys would bring their kids, so we’d all hang out and play.”
Ray became an ardent advocate — a “poster boy,” as he called it — for compensation and health care for hundreds of ailing responders.
At age 59, he died three days after learning that his son was admitted to the next FDNY class, clinging to life until he got the good news. Terence is assigned to Engine 79 in the Bronx.
“He was the highest-ranking uniformed firefighter in the city,” Chris Ganci smiled. “But if you asked him what he did for a living, he’d say he was a New York City firefighter.”
Chris, then 25, had a well-paid pharma job and was about to earn his MBA from New York University.
“But I wasn’t happy,” he said. “So I thought, basically, what’s the closest example? And he was always happy going to work.”
He completed his MBA program — but soon left the business world to join the FDNY.
“It’s the best decision I ever made in my entire life.”
Chris, now 45, joined the department in 2005. Today he’s a battalion chief, leading the 19th Battalion in the West Bronx. His brother Peter, 47, is a Fire Department captain.
“There’s a reason we call each other ‘brother’ on the fire ground,” he said. “It’s more than a relationship. That’s how I feel about my father every single day I walk through those doors.”
“When I was little, I would listen to it all the time,” John Leahy said of the message that his dad, NYPD officer James Leahy, left on the family answering machine on the morning of Sept. 11.
“He was super calm,” Leahy remembered. “It was just, ‘I’m here helping out and I’ll call you later.’”
Officer Leahy was on patrol in Greenwich Village, two miles away from the attack, when he witnessed the first plane’s impact. He raced to the scene to assist. John, the youngest son he called “his buddy,” was 6 years old.
“Everyone told my dad he didn’t have to be there,” John said.
“He was last seen bringing oxygen tanks up the stairs of Tower 1 for the firefighters” — without any protective equipment of his own.
“He chose to go and help the Fire Department out. So I decided that’s what I wanted to do.”
“My firehouse lost 10 guys in the tower where my dad was,” he said. “I don’t know if they were together in there, but they were all in the same building.
“So it’s funny, now, that I ended up here. It’s like he’s looking out for me.”
FDNY legacy: Josephine SmithHero father: Kevin Smith
<img class="i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer" role="presentation" src="data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Josephine Smith
“My father would do anything and everything for anybody, whether he knew you or not,” said Josephine Smith.
“Selfless would have been the way to put it,” she added with a nostalgic smile.
Her dad, firefighter Kevin Smith, was a Marine Corps veteran and a founding member of Hazmat 1 in Maspeth, Queens, the Fire Department’s dedicated company of hazardous materials experts.
<img class="i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer" role="presentation" src="data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Kevin Smith
The unit was quickly deployed to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 — and was almost entirely wiped out there. Twelve of its members, including Smith, were slain.
“I’ve always wanted to be a firefighter my whole life,” Josephine Smith, now 41, said. “Just watching my father as I grew up, saving people, protecting the city of New York and loving what it is that he did made me want to do and be everything that he was.”
Smith became the Fire Department’s first female legacy in 2014, at the age of 34. Today, she’s a firefighter at Engine 39 on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
“We’re all a family in a different way than anybody else is,” she said of the deep bond that 9/11 legacy firefighters feel among themselves.
“It’s something that nobody else can really understand except for us.”
FDNY legacy: Kelly Fullam Hero father: Martin Fullam
“I’m the first and only girl my firehouse has ever had,” Kelly Fullam said.
“There’s a little bit of an adjustment period — you know, for them,” she added, flashing a mischievous grin. “But it’s good … I feel like I have 50 big brothers.”
Fullam was the oldest of three sisters whose dad, Lt. Martin Fullam, died in 2013 of polymyositis, a rare autoimmune disease that he and several other first responders developed as a result of their World Trade Center rescue efforts.
After his death, Kelly, 30, joined her father’s beloved Fire Department herself and is now stationed at Engine 284 in Brooklyn’s Dyker Heights neighborhood.
“I’ve always wanted to be a firefighter, just seeing how my dad … loved the job,” she said. “It was never ‘I have to go to work’ — it was always ‘I get to go to work.’”
Lt. Fullam’s 2010 testimony before the US Senate was instrumental in the passage of the Zadroga Act, the law that extended federal aid to 9/11 victims who, like Fullam, developed WTC-related illnesses years after the attacks.
“I was very lucky to have him as a dad,” she said.
FDNY legacies: Matt, Carl, Rebecca and Marc Asaro Hero father: Carl Asaro Sr.
“I see him in all of us — especially in how witty he was,” Rebecca Asaro said of her father, Carl Asaro, who inspired four of his six children to follow him into the Fire Department.
“He always had something smart or wise to say, and I see that in my brothers,” she said.
“In the firehouse, you’ve always got to have the witty comeback, so my home throughout my childhood was basically training. I’ve been a probie for 30 years now,” she laughed.
Rebecca was 9 when her dad — along with every member of the 15-man shift at Midtown’s Engine 54/Ladder 4/Battalion 9 — was killed on 9/11. It was the heaviest loss of life suffered by any single firehouse that day.
“We never found my dad, so there was never really closure for us,” she said.
Today, all four of the firefighting Asaros serve in Manhattan: Carl, now 33, at Ladder 23; Matt, 32, at Engine 33; Marc, 27, at Engine 22; and Rebecca, 29, who was thrilled to be assigned to their father’s old outfit, Engine 54.
“I am literally following my father’s footsteps every single day,” she said.
“Some days I don’t think too much about 9/11,” she said. “But working that house, seeing the memorial there, you really can’t avoid it.”
To help preserve her father’s memory, she offers tours to visitors, showing off the bronze bas-relief panel at Eighth Avenue and 48th Street that pays tribute to him and his lost comrades.
FDNY legacy: Michael SullivanHero father: John P. Sullivan
Third-generation firefighter Michael Sullivan feels he has a lot to live up to.
“Walking through the same doors, sharing the same locker that he had … it’s pretty amazing,” said Sullivan, a firefighter at Ladder 34 in Washington Heights.
“And my grandfather was also in the same firehouse, so — no pressure,” Sullivan said with a self-deprecating chuckle.
John Sullivan died in 2010, just weeks after his retirement at age 52.
“It was pancreatic cancer,” said Michael of his father’s diagnosis, related to the toxic environment at Ground Zero. “We only really had him for a month after his diagnosis.”
Colleagues remember his dad’s “very calming” presence, no matter how chaotic or dangerous the scene.
“You always felt safe with him. Whether it was on the job or off the job, you would feel a blanket of safeness,” the 27-year-old Sullivan said.
“Because you never see a firefighter run, it’s just not how you operate,” he explained. “Everything’s smooth. You’ve just got to be easy, and take it all in, because there’s a lot going on.
“That’s him, he was smooth,” he said. “And now I carry the torch.”
FDNY legacy: Manny MojicaHero father: Manuel Mojica Jr.
“He was my superhero then, and still is,” he said of Manuel Mojica Jr., a firefighter at Squad 18 in Greenwich Village known for his motorcycle, tattoos and big mustache.
Now 25, Manny pays tribute to his dad with tattoos on his muscular right arm. They depict the logo of the Grateful Dead, his dad’s favorite band; the words from a song, “Inspiration, move me brightly;” the Harley-Davidson; a kneeling fireman with two beams of light for the Twin Towers; and a Maltese Cross marked 9017, his dad’s badge number.
Manny, who joined the Bravest in 2019, wears that number at Engine 298 in Jamaica, Queens, fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a firefighter like his father. “That was my only plan.”
He remains close to retired members of his dad’s old firehouse.
“They were always there to help my mother, sister and me, and always made us feel welcome,” he said.
Now a mirror-image of “Big Manny,” he rides a motorcycle and likes to work on cars. He is refurbishing the old Harley, but only to ride on his dad’s birthday, Father’s Day, and 9/11 anniversaries.
FDNY legacies: Jonathan and Christopher OttenHero father: Michael J. Otten
“I knew he was going to be there that day when I saw the fire on the news. I knew he was saving other people,” Jonathan Otten recalled of his father on 9/11, when he was 8 years old.
Michael J. Otten, 42‚ was killed with all 10 fellow Bravest from Engine 40/Ladder 35 in Midtown who raced to the blazing Twin Towers.
Before then, Jonathan knew little about the dangers of the job.
He remembers how his dad “always walked into a room with an ear-to-ear grin, and never let anything get to him.”
A “big kid,” as Marion Otten called her husband, the father of three spent hours on end playing football, soccer and baseball with the boys on their East Islip front lawn.
“He taught us right from wrong, to always be polite and respectful of other people. But he was able to have fun with us whenever he could,” said Jonathan, 28, who is due to graduate from the Fire Academy this month. He will be a fourth-generation FDNY firefighter, following his father, grandfather Richard and great-grandfather Henry into the department.
“I grew up my whole life thinking I was going to be a fireman. This was going to be my career, my passion and there was no looking away from it.”
His father’s death did not deter him. “I know he died doing what he loved. I do it for the same reason — to put your own life on the line to help other people when they need it the most.”
His brother Christopher, 31, joined the Bravest first. He serves with Ladder 35, the “Cavemen,” on the Upper West Side.
FDNY legacy: Pete J. CarrollHero father: Peter J. Carroll
Firefighters wear a hood under their helmets to prevent their head, neck and ears from burns. Pete Carroll keeps a brown hood that belonged to his dad, Peter J. Carroll, in his fireman’s coat pocket.
“I carry it with me every single day on every single run. I like to think he’s looking out for me and the guys I work with.”
Pete’s older brother Michael, who joined the FDNY three years after 9/11, carried the fire-resistant hood for 13 years. Michael, now at Rescue 5, bestowed it on Pete when he became a firefighter in 2019.
Just 8 years old on 9/11 when his father was killed, Pete has vivid memories of the time he spent with his dad, “just me and him,” in the woods and swamps near his grandparents’ home upstate.
“Me and him used to catch frogs and snakes and keep them as pets. It was the most fun in the world.”
After 9/11, the family received a letter from a woman who worked in the Twin Towers. “He pulled her out and went back in,” Pete said she wrote.
“He was one of those extremely brave people,” Pete said. “I’m blessed to live in his footsteps.”
Pete, 28, serves at Ladder 120 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, near his dad’s Squad 1. His younger brother, Christopher, 26, will soon join the FDNY as well.
FDNY legacy: Glenn Perry Hero father: Glenn C. Perry
<img class="i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer" role="presentation" src="data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Glenn Perry
Glenn Perry’s dad never tried to persuade his son to become a firefighter.
“He wanted me to do something else. He wasn’t pushing it,” Perry said. Lt. Glenn C. Perry had been so eager to follow the path of his own dad into the FDNY that he ran up and down the stairs at a Staten Island rail station with an oxygen canister to train for the test.
<img class="i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer" role="presentation" src="data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Glenn Perry Sr.
Before 9/11, the younger Perry thought about becoming a gym teacher or joining the military. That changed when he was 16. Lt. Perry, 41, died in the World Trade Center collapse.
“After that happened, it was pretty much a no-brainer. Shove it down the terrorists’ throats, and tell them ‘You didn’t win,’” the son said.
“After 9/11, he would have wanted me to join the FDNY. To become a third-generation firefighter and try to fill my dad’s shoes … is a very difficult task.”
Perry, 36, who joined the Bravest in 2006, is assigned to Ladder 34 in Washington Heights, the same firehouse where his dad last served — and where one of his dad’s fellow firefighters still works.
“I plan on doing another 15 years,” he said.
FDNY legacy: Thomas HeedlesHero father: Dennis Heedles
“That got me thinking — yes, you’re taking a risk every time you go to work,” he said. “But at my dad’s funeral, I felt, they got our back.”
Dennis Heedles, who was stationed at Ladder 76 in Tottenville, Staten Island, on Sept. 11, died 14 years later — weeks after being diagnosed with WTC-related lung cancer.
“It was sudden,” said Thomas, now 31 and a firefighter at Ladder 148 in Borough Park, Brooklyn. “We all thought he was the strongest guy in the world. By the time they caught it, it was too late.”
“A legacy already has a respect for the job,” he explained. “You’re in the firehouse all the time from when you’re a little kid; it’s already part of you.
“Some guys feel like it’s just work,” Heedles said. “We come in knowing a little bit better what it’s all about.”
FDNY legacy: James TancrediHero father: Vincent Tancredi
“Then I realized what the job was all about,” James said. “And that it’s the only thing I want to do with my life.”
Tancredi, now 32 and a father himself — with an 18-month-old son and another baby on the way — marvels at the time and energy that his dad lavished on his boys, James and Kevin, during their childhood years.
“He came home and always gave us his full attention, no matter how tired he was,” he recalled. “And now I realize how tired he actually could be, coming home from a 24 [hour shift].”
His day-to-day work at Ladder 39 in the Wakefield neighborhood of the Bronx “definitely makes me feel I have a closer bond with my dad,” Tancredi said.
“I wish we could have conversations about things that happen on the job. But doing it makes me feel…” he paused for a moment, searching for the right word. “Whole.”
FDNY legacy: Larry SullivanHero father: Lawrence J. Sullivan
“This picture reminds me how much he loved the job, how happy he was to work in Rescue 5,” Larry Sullivan said of his father, Lawrence J. Sullivan, who died in 2012 at age 53 of a rare cancer linked to his digging at Ground Zero.
Larry was with his dad in 2011 when a Sloan Kettering doctor told him the tumor in his small intestine could not be removed.
<img class="i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer" role="presentation" src="data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Lawrence J. Sullivan
“The first thing he said, in tears, was, ‘I’ll never be a fireman again.’”
After chemo and radiation failed, Sullivan spent his final months in bed at home, but had plenty of company with his wife Virginia, three sons and two daughters.
Larry and his dad watched Yankees games, laughed and talked about his job with the FDNY. As he was ailing, Rescue 5 comrades visited and tended to his every need.
The Staten Island veteran voiced a final hope that this death would give sons Larry and James the “legacy points” to catapult them into the Bravest.
“He wanted me and my brother to be firemen so badly. He used to always tell me, ‘It’s the best job in the world.’”
In 2014, Larry, now 39, was assigned to Ladder 148 in Borough Park. One year later, James, 30, joined Engine 310 in East Flatbush. Their brother Robert, 33, is a member of the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit.
FDNY legacy: Thomas Van Doran Hero father: Thomas R. Van Doran
<img class="i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer" role="presentation" src="data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Thomas Van Doren
“My dad never stopped learning,” Thomas Van Doran said.
“When he turned 50, my mom bought him a saxophone,” said Van Doran, 27, a firefighter at Ladder 154 in Jackson Heights, Queens.
<img class="i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer" role="presentation" src="data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Thomas R. Van Doren
“He had no musical experience whatsoever, and it was pretty rough in the beginning, but he taught himself how to play. He’d even bring it to the firehouse with him.
“To this day I’ll meet guys from his firehouse who’ll say to me, ‘Just tell me you’re not playing the saxophone, please!’” Van Doran laughed.
Thomas R. Van Doran was a captain with Engine 95 in upper Manhattan on Sept. 11. “He was on restricted duty at the time,” his son said. “But he went down to the pile that day and was there for six months.”
Around his neck, the younger Van Doran wears a St. Florian pendant honoring the patron saint of firefighters — another gift from his mother, Elizabeth.
“My mom met my dad when he was at Engine 23 in Manhattan,” Van Doran said. “She gave him this pendant when they started dating. He wore it to work every single day.
“It was kind of a way to stay safe, and it worked,” he said. “Maybe it’ll protect me, too.”
FDNY legacy: Peter Regan Hero father: Donald J. Regan
Peter Regan was a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton outside San Diego when the Twin Towers collapsed, killing his father, Donald Regan, 47, of Rescue 3 in the Bronx.
The 20-year-old flew to New York and raced to Ground Zero, where he dug and dug for days in the smoking rubble “because my father was in there.” He found human remains, but his family never recovered his father’s.
After 9/11, Peter served two tours in Iraq, including Operation Enduring Freedom, before joining Ladder 174 in Brooklyn, a former firehouse of his dad’s where some members had worked with Donald.
Peter knew how his father felt about firefighting.
“My dad loved going in. He was in a much better mood when he came home knowing he did something good for someone else. He would always have the attitude, ‘I wish I could do more.’”
Now 40, Peter is married and has four children, ages 3 to 9, and appreciates his dad, who also had four kids, more than ever.
“Now I look back and I’m like, ‘How did he do this every day?’”
Donald worked a second job as an HVAC technician to support his family. With his children all playing sports at the same time, “He tried to make at least an inning of every game,” he recalled.
Peter said he aims to live up to his father’s legacy every day.
“What he modeled I’m trying to stick with,” he said. “It’s a good pressure to put on yourself. You’ve got to do well because you’re living up to expectations. I don’t want to let up.”
FDNY legacy: Aric TegtmeierHero father: Paul A. Tegtmeier
Tegtmeier was just 6 years old when his firefighter father was killed at the World Trade Center, yet memories of angling on family vacations in the Adirondacks, Poughkeepsie and Outer Banks, NC — or just on outings to a local pond — still come to mind.
Looking back now, the 26-year-old sees his dad as much more than a happy, gone-fishing kind of guy who doted on Aric and his two sisters. He was also a volunteer firefighter for more than 20 years in Roosevelt, NY, who kept testing for the FDNY. When he finally made it, he gave up a higher-paying career with the phone company to join the Bravest.
“It’s all he ever wanted to do.”
His father became an FDNY probie at the “pretty old” age of 40 (the limit has since dropped to 29) and died on 9/11 just 18 months later.
His dad’s accomplishments impressed his young son to follow suit. “If he could do it at 40 years old, I could do it at my age.”
Aric, who has a degree in arson investigation, is a member of Ladder 58 in the Bronx, near his father’s old firehouse, Ladder 46.
FDNY legacy: Chris MascaliHero father: Joseph A. Mascali
“It takes a special person to do this job, not to pat us all on the back,” said Chris Mascali, 38, an eight-year FDNY veteran assigned to Ladder 157 in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
“And I have a different understanding of that, now that I’m doing the same thing my father did.”
Joseph A. Mascali was one of 11 members of Staten Island’s elite Rescue 5 unit who perished at the World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11.
“I always felt like I might become a fireman,” Chris Mascali said. “I went to college and thought for a while that maybe I’d take a different path. But the 11th drew me back in.
“The job, it’s my connection with my dad,” he said.
His fondest memory of his father dates back to the summer of 2001, as Chris competed in a prestigious junior golf tournament in Staten Island.
“I never liked the family or anyone to watch me play,” he recalled. “But unbeknownst to me, my dad was there the whole time, watching from a distance.
“I won the tournament, and suddenly out from behind the trees he came walking down to me,” Mascali said.
“It was one of the last moments we shared — a hug on the 18th hole I’ll never forget.”
FDNY legacy: Michael O’Hanlon Jr.Hero father: Michael O’Hanlon Sr.
When O’Hanlon Sr. died in 2017 of stomach and esophageal cancer developed after spending months at Ground Zero, his son was just about to take the firefighter’s test to follow his dad’s path.
“Becoming a firefighter was one of my dreams as a kid,” O’Hanlon said. “I think God had it in his plan all along that that would be the time.”
Today O’Hanlon, who joined the department in 2019, works at Ladder 59 in the Bronx’s University Heights neighborhood — just a mile away from Engine 68 in Highbridge, his dad’s home turf for his entire 30-year career.
“I’m meeting so many people now who worked with him or knew him from the Emerald Society,” he said, of the group of firefighters with Irish heritage. “To hear them praise him, talk about his character, how he conducted himself — it makes me so proud.”
“Now that I’m experiencing it firsthand, I’m learning to appreciate the honor, the prestige, and the responsibility he felt in the way he did the job.”
FDNY legacy: Brian Phillips Hero father: Raymond R. Phillips
Raymond R. Phillips played Santa so well, his own kids couldn’t recognize him. “One of us said, ‘Santa’s got daddy’s eyes,’ and Mom was like, ‘The kids are onto us,’” his son Brian remembered.
The 6-foot-3 firefighter’s nickname was “Gonzo,” which came from Godzilla, but he brought joy for 30 years as St. Nick at a burn center and the annual FDNY Widows & Children’s holiday party.
“He was a big guy with a big personality,” said Brian, 31, now a firefighter assigned to Ladder 37 in Bedford Park, the Bronx.
On Sept. 11, Raymond was called to the Twin Towers from the Special Operations Command on Roosevelt Island. He spent weeks on the smoking pile searching for bodies. He developed asthma, which ultimately triggered a fatal heart attack in 2018.
Over the years, the FDNY fellowship made an impression on Brian. Last summer, a Bronx firefighter came up to him and said, “When my dad passed, Gonzo went above and beyond for our family.”
Added Brian: “I love the firefighting side of the job, but I fell in love with the camaraderie and brotherhood behind it.”
Raymond encouraged his kids to explore public service, but never pushed it, Brian said. His older brother, Raymond, 33, is an NYPD officer. His younger sister, Courtney, 29, is in nursing school.
Brian joined the Bravest a year after his dad died. When he inherited his father’s badge number, 5659, his mom, Maureen, bestowed upon him the gold Maltese cross, with 5659 engraved on it, that she had given her husband as a gift.
FDNY legacy: Gary Watson Hero father: Kenneth T. Watson
Gary Watson, who was 7 years old when he lost his doting father, firefighter Kenneth T. Watson, felt reluctant at first about taking the same career path.
“What I went through as a child was tough. God forbid, if something happened to me, I wouldn’t want my kids growing up without a dad.”
“The older I got, I realized you can’t really think about it that way. I want to save lives. I want to help people out. You can’t think about the negative ‘what ifs,’” said Gary, 27, who is set to graduate from the Fire Academy this month.
“I think about the good stuff,” like summer camping trips to the Catskills with the families of the firefighters in his dad’s Engine 214/Ladder 111 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, dubbed “Nut House.”
Gary and his three siblings played with the other kids and everyone bonded around the campfire. “It’s something I would like to share with my family when that time comes.”
His father had been a star lacrosse player at Smithtown West High School, where he met his wife Susan, and passed his athletic ability onto his three sons and daughter. Gary’s older brother Ken and sister Angela are Nassau County cops.
On his back, Gary has tattoos of a kneeling firefighter with angel wings in front of the Twin Towers, his father’s badge number 11685 and the simple tribute: “Dad.”
“I’m positive now,” he said. “Everything I do now I’m hoping he’s proud of me.”
FDNY legacy: Thomas ‘Tommy’ Palombo Hero father: Frank Anthony Palombo
“That’s grandpa’s truck!” little Anthony Frank said excitedly as his dad turned the pages of the picture book “Goodnight Firehouse.”
“We try to tell him about my dad in a way that works for his age level,” Palombo, 29, said of the boy named in honor of Frank Anthony Palombo, one of seven firefighters from Brooklyn’s Ladder 105 lost on 9/11.
“Last year on September 11 I took him to the fountains and to my dad’s firehouse to start the tradition with him,” Palombo said. In another year or two Anthony’s little brother Luca, 11 months, will join them.
Tommy himself was just 9 when he lost his dad in the terror attacks, and he has cherished a Mass card from his funeral ever since.
“Now I wear it behind my fronties,” he said — the leather helmet badge that identifies his unit, Engine 69 in Harlem, where he’s worked since 2015. “It helps me, just his presence.”
Two members of the 10-sibling Palombo family, Tommy and his brother John, 28, joined the department.
“Me and him were not that close growing up, but now we might be the closest,” Palombo said. “It’s that bond — it’s hard to describe but it means a lot.”
At the 40 minute mark Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath discuss Deena Burnett’s assertion that her husband Tom was an instrument carrying out God’s will in stopping the plane from hitting the White House.
On September 11, 2001, while on board United Airlines Flight 93, Burnett sat next to passenger Mark Bingham. Burnett called his wife, Deena, after hijackers took control of the plane. During his second call to her, she relayed to him that the Towers of the World Trade Center had collapsed.[7] Upon learning of the situation, Deena, a former flight attendant, recalled her training and urged Burnett to sit quietly and not draw attention to himself, but Burnett instead informed her that he and three other passengers, Mark Bingham, Todd Beamer and Jeremy Glick, were forming a plan to take the plane back from the hijackers, and leading other passengers in this effort.[5][6][8] He also told Deena not to worry.[9] Burnett and several other passengers stormed the cockpit, foiling the hijackers’ plan to crash the plane into the White House or Capitol Building,[5][10] and forced it to crash in a Pennsylvania field, killing all 44 people on board.[5][6]
________________
Let me make a few points here. I am told that Tom and Deena used to attend Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock when they were visiting her parents in Little Rock. Deena actually grew up in a Southern Baptist Church like I did. It is a common view in many evangelical circles that the problem of evil must be explained in light of the events of Genesis chapter 3 and the fall of man. You can see this pointed out in the Evangelism Explosion leader’s guide written by Dr. D. James Kennedy. Francis Schaeffer and Ravi Zacharias have written much on this subject too and some their work is below:
___________
So many tragic things happen in this world and many ask ” How can a good God allow evil and suffering?”
Their thinking is that either God is not powerful enough to prevent evil or else God is not good. He is often blamed for tragedy. “Where was God when I went through this, or when that happened.” God is blamed for natural disasters, Even my insurance company describes them as “acts of God.” How to handle this one- (O.N.E.) a. Origin of evil— man’s choice- God created a perfect world… b. Nature of God—He forgives, I John 1:9—He uses tragedy to bring us to Himself, C.S. Lewis, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to arouse a deaf world.” c. End of it all—Bible teaches that God will one day put an end to all evil, and pain and death. “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).As Christians we have this hope of Heaven and eternity. Share how it has made a tremendous difference in your life and that you know for sure that when you die you are going to spend eternity in Heaven. Ask the person, “May I ask you a question? Do you have this hope? Do you know for certain that when you die you are going to Heaven, or is that something you would say you’re still working on?”How could a loving God send people to Hell? (O.N.E.) a. Origin of hell—never intended for people. Created for Satan and his demons. Jesus said, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt 25:41). Man chooses to sin and ignore God. The penalty is death (eternal separation from God) and, yes, Hell. But God doesn’t send anyone to Hell, we choose it by refusing or ignoring God in attitude and action. b. Nature of God—“ God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). He is so loving that He sent His own Son to die and pay the penalty for our sin so that we could avoid Hell and have the assurance of Heaven. No one in Hell will be able to blame God. He doesn’t send people there, it’s our own choice. We must choose to repent, to stop ignoring God in attitude and action, accepting His salvation and yielding to His leadership.c. End of it all—Bible teaches that God will one day put an end to all evil, pain, death, and penalty of Hell. “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).As Christians , we need not worry about Hell. The Bible says, “these things have been written . . . so that you may know you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). I have complete confidence that when I die, I’m going to Heaven. May I ask you a question?___________________________-
The problem of evil is a significant moral issue in the atheist’s arsenal. We talk about a God of goodness, but what we see around us is suffering, and a lot of it apparently unjustifiable. Stephanie said, “Disbelief in a personal, loving God as an explanation of the way the world works is reasonable–especially when one considers natural disasters that can’t be blamed on free will and sin.”{17}
One response to the problem of evil is that God sees our freedom to choose as a higher value than protecting people from harm; this is the freewill defense. Stephanie said, however, that natural disasters can’t be blamed on free will and sin. What about this? Is it true that natural disasters can’t be blamed on sin? I replied that they did come into existence because of sin (Genesis 3). We’re told in Romans 8 that creation will one day “be set free from its slavery to corruption,” that it “groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” The Fall caused the problem, and, in the consummation of the ages, the problem will be fixed.
Second, I noted that on a naturalistic basis, it’s hard to even know what evil is. But the reality of God explains it. As theologian Henri Blocher said,
The sense of evil requires the God of the Bible. In a novel by Joseph Heller, “While rejecting belief in God, the characters in the story find themselves compelled to postulate his existence in order to have an adequate object for their moral indignation.” . . . When you raise this standard objection against God, to whom do you say it, other than this God? Without this God who is sovereign and good, what is the rationale of our complaints? Can we even tell what is evil? Perhaps the late John Lennon understood: “God is a concept by which we measure our pain,” he sang. Might we be coming to the point where the sense of evil is a proof of the existence of God?{18}
So,… if there is no God, there really is no problem of evil. Does the atheist ever find herself shaking her fist at the sky after some catastrophe and demanding an explanation? If there is no God, no one is listening.
__________________
Francis Schaeffer and Gospel of Christ in the pages of the Bible
FRANCIS SCHAEFFER’S WORDS BELOW:
The Personal Origin of Man
The Scriptures tell us that the universe exists and has form and meaning because it was created purposefully by a personal Creator. This being the case, we see that, as we are personal, we are not something strange and out of line with an otherwise impersonal universe. Since we are made in the image of God, we are in line with God. There is continuity, in other words, between ourselves, though finite, and the infinite Creator who stands behind the universe as its Creator and its final source of meaning. Unlike the evolutionary concept of an impersonal beginning plus time plus chance, the Bible gives an account of man’s origin as a finite person make in God’s image, that is, like God. We see then how man can have personality and dignity and value. Our uniqueness is guaranteed, something which is impossible in the materialistic system. If there is no qualitative distinction between man and other organic life (animals or plants), why should we feel greater concern over the death of a human being than over the death of a laboratory rat? Is man in the end any higher?
Though this is the logical end of the materialistic system, men and women still usually in practice assume that people have some real value. All the way back to the dawn of our investigations in history, we find that man is still man. Wherever we turn, to the caves of the Pyrenees, to the Sumerians in Mesopotamia, and even further back to Neanderthal man’s burying his dead in flower petals, it makes no difference: men everywhere show by their art and their accomplishments that they have been and have considered themselves to be unique. They were unique, and people today are unique. What is wrong is a world-view which fails to explain that uniqueness. All people are unique because they are made in the image of God.
The Bible tells us also, however, that man is flawed. We see this to be the case both within ourselves and in our societies throughout the world. People are noble and people are cruel; people have heights of moral achievement and depths of moral depravity.
But this is not simply an enigma, nor is it explained in terms of “the animal in man.” The Bible explains how man is flawed, without destroying the uniqueness and dignity of man. Man is evil and experiences the results of evil, not because man is non-man but because man is fallen and thus is abnormal.
This is the significance of the third chapter of Genesis. Some time after the original Creation (we do not know how long), man rebelled against God. Being made in the image of God as persons, Adam and Eve were able to make real choices. They had true creativity, not just in the area we call “art” but also in the area of choice. And they used this choice to turn from God as their true integration point. Their ability to choose would have been equally validated if they had chosen not to turn away from God, as their true integration point, but instead they used their choice to try to make themselves autonomous. In doing this, they were acting against the moral absolute of the universe, namely, God’s character – and thus evil among people was born. The Fall brought not only moral evil but also the abnormality of(1) each person divided from himself or herself; (2) people divided from other people; (3) mankind divided from nature; and (4) nature divided from nature. This was the consequence of the choice made by Adam and Eve some time after the Creation. It was not any original deformity that made them choose in this way. God had not made them robots, and so they had real choice. It is man, therefore, and not God, who is responsible for evil.
We have to keep pointing out, because the idea is strange to a society by which the Bible has been neglected or distorted, that Christianity does not begin with a statement of Christ as Savior. That comes later in its proper setting. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created….” Christianity begins with the personal and infinite God who is the Creator. It goes on to show that man is made in God’s image but then tells us that man is now fallen. It is the rebellion of man that has made the world abnormal. So there is a broken line as we look back to the creation of man by God. A chasm stands there near the beginning, the chasm which is the Fall, the choice to go against God and His Word.
What follows from this is that not everything that happens in the world is “natural.” Unlike modern materialistic thought on both sides of the Iron Curtain, Christianity does not see everything in history as equally “normal.” Because of the abnormality brought about by man, not everything which occurs in history should be there. Thus, not all that history brings forth is right just because it happens, and not all personal drives and motives are equally good. Here, then, is a marked difference between Christianity and almost all other philosophies. Most other philosophies do not have the concept of a present abnormality. Therefore, they hold that everything now is normal; things are now as they always have been. By contrast, Christians do not see things as if they always have been this way. This is of immense importance in understanding evil in the world. It is possible for Christians to speak of things as absolutely wrong, for they are not original in human society. They are derived from the Fall; they are in that sense “abnormal.” It also means we can stand against what is wrong and cruel without standing against God, for He did not make the world as it now is.
This understanding of the chasm between what mankind and history are now and what they could have been – and should have been, from the way they were made – gives us a real moral framework for life, one which is compatible with our nature and aspirations. So there are “rules for life,’ like the signs on cliff tops which read: DANGER – KEEP OUT. The signs are there to help, not hinder us. God has put them there because to live in this way, according to His rules, is the way for both safety and fulfillment. The God who made us and knows what is for our best good is the same God who gives us His commands. When we break these, it is not only wrong, it is also not for our best good; it is not for our fulfillment as unique persons made in the image of God.
___________
Below is a transcript of the discussion between a student at Nottingham and Ravi Zacharias about evil and morality and it also discussed in the video clip above.
Student: There is too much evil in this world; therefore, there cannot be a God! Speaker: Would you mind if I asked you something? You said, “God cannot exist because there is too much evil.” If there is such a thing as evil, aren’t you assuming that there is such a thing as good? Student: I guess so. Speaker: If there is such a thing as good, you must affirm a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. Speaker: In a debate between the philosopher Frederick Copleston and the atheist Bertrand Russell, Copleston said, “Mr. Russell, you do believe in good and bad, don’t you?” Russell answered, “Yes, I do.” “How do you differentiate between good and bad?” challenged Copleston. Russell shrugged his shoulders and said, “On the basis of feeling – what else?” I must confess, Mr. Copleston was a kindlier gentleman than many others. The appropriate “logical kill” for the moment would have been, “Mr. Russell, in some cultures they love their neighbors; in other cultures they eat them, both on the basis of feeling. Do you have any preference?” Speaker: When you say there is evil, aren’t you admitting there is good? When you accept the existence of goodness, you must affirm a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. But when you admit to a moral law, you must posit a moral lawgiver. That, however, is
who you are trying to disprove and not prove. For if there is no moral lawgiver, there is no moral law. If there is no moral law, there is no good. If there is no good, there is no evil. What, then, is your question? Student: What, then, am I asking you?
When Deena Burnett Bailey spoke of the last time she heard her late husband’s voice, the rattle of silverware against china, the whispers and the general noise of a luncheon ceased.
Bailey is the widow of Tom E. Burnett, who led resistance efforts on United Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001.
PHOTO BY JIM WEBER BUY THIS PHOTO »Deena Burnett Bailey, widow of Tom Burnett who orchestrated the resistance against the terrorists aboard Flight 93, talks during the Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary’s God Bless America Luncheon on Wednesday at the University of Memphis Holiday Inn.
The story of Burnett’s heroism is still a difficult one to tell, Bailey said, especially so close to the anniversary. But she wants to share it to inspire others, she said.
Bailey is the co-author of “Fighting Back: Living Life Beyond Ourselves,” a book about her husband and the others who took action against the terrorists who held the passengers hostage on Flight 93.
Bailey and former New York City police officer Jim Shepherd spoke Wednesday at a Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary luncheon.
Bailey, now remarried and living in Little Rock, was living in California on Sept. 11. She was waiting with their three daughters for her husband to return from a business trip.
As Bailey watched the two terrorist-controlled planes collide with the World Trade Center in New York, Burnett called and told her he was on a third plane that had been hijacked, and that the hijackers had “already knifed a guy.” He told her to call the authorities.
Bailey called 911 and was eventually connected with the FBI.
Her husband called again, asking questions about the World Trade Center, and then a third time to tell her passengers were hatching a plan to overtake the plane.
He called one last time to say the passengers were waiting until the plane was over a rural area before moving in on the hijackers. While everyone on the airplane was ultimately killed, no one on the ground was injured when Flight 93 went down.
Now, Burnett is honored as an American hero. Bailey says it’s a word her husband felt was overused. She says he believed in making good choices and making a difference in the lives of others.
“Tom’s last words to me were ‘Do something.’ They ring true for each of us to stand up, fight back, do something,” she said.
For Shepherd, who now lives in Memphis, the fateful day began as he drank coffee at the gym. He saw the first airplane circle but assumed it was out of its flight pattern and looking for an airport.
“At the last moment I thought, ‘Oh my God I hope he misses the buildings,’” Shepherd said.
By the time he reached his precinct, the second plane had hit the South Tower.
Later, rescuers found three stories of the building compacted into a pile only 12 feet high, with easily distinguishable layers of concrete floor, carpet and debris, he said.
Shepherd thanked the Salvation Army, which marched quietly into New York and got to work.
“You really felt like you weren’t alone,” he said. “You had another army behind you to help.”
Fighting Back is the timely and inspiring story of Thomas Burnett, the ringleader of the small group of courageous men that fought back against the terrorists on United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, that crashed in the fields in Pennsylvania. His wife Deena tells about the incredible details ofthat horrific day, the now famous four cell phone calls her husband made to her from the plane, his quick assessment of the alarming suicidal flight plan, and his decision to “do something.” She tells about all that happened to her and her children in the days and months after that devastating day, and how the love, faith and strength of her departed husband helped her to fight back to find purpose and joy in her life again.
She also tells about Tom’s life story, showing how he was an ordinary American who was deeply patriotic, a very good athlete, a loving father and husband, a successful businessman, and a devout Catholic and daily communicant. This powerful book reveals the inspiring courage, character, faith and integrity that Tom Burnett showed in all the aspects of his life as a father, husband and businessman, and how his valor and leadership in that perilous plane were the result of how he lived his life every day. His story will strengthen and inspire all “ordinary” Americans, and Catholics, to imitate this man’s life of commitment to excellence, patriotism, devotion to family, and love of God. It is a story of suffering, sacrifice and of rebirth.
Carl E. Olson, editor of IgnatiusInsight.com, recently spoke with Deena Burnett about her late husband, the events of 9/11, and her faith in God.
IgnatiusInsight.com: When and how did you first decide to write Fighting Back?
Deena Burnett: I was approached right after Tom had died, and my first reaction was, “No, I don’t want to write anything.” But after a few months I realized that it would be important to write it down for my children. In January [of 2006], Anthony [Giombetti] and I got together and started writing. He would interview me and record the interviews, and then he would transcribe those interviews and then we would get together and edit it. That’s really when we started. And the idea was to chronicle Tom’s life and what had happened on September 11th, and talk about what he did and why he did it. In my mind, it was for my children, to record it, so that they would not forget. Then it evolved into something that I believe with inspire the reader to make a difference.
IgnatiusInsight.com: What do you hope readers will learn from reading the book?
Deena Burnett: Actually, just that; I hope that they are inspired to make a difference, that they see the value of having faith in God and know the importance of passing that faith on to their children.
IgnatiusInsight.com: A central theme of the book is that seemingly ordinary people can do extraordinary things. How did Tom exemplify that it in his ordinary life and in his extraordinary actions on Flight 93?
Deena Burnett: I think that is found throughout the whole book. You certainly see that I try to stress that it wasn’t just what he did on September 11th, but that he lived his life with integrity, and I think that it was certainly his upbringing in the Faith that made him kind and attentive and concerned about other people. And I think that those are the values that he brought into the way that he lived, that helped him be a hero everyday of his life, and not just on September 11th.
Deena Burnett: Well, as early as the morning of September 11th, I was requesting to hear the cockpit voice recorder. I felt like it would just give me some answers as to what happened in those final moments. I didn’t know how to go about finding someone who could allow me to hear it. Anyone who had anything to do with the government, I’d just ask them, “Help me.” Very early on I met a lady, Ellen Tauscher, a representative from California, who really took me on as her project and helped me. She helped me go through the channels, writing the letters and making the phone calls and putting the pressure on different channels within the FBI and our government to release that cockpit voice recorder. I have told her so many times, “You know, Ellen, that you did this; it was you, but I’m getting all the credit for it.” And she would just laugh and say, “That’s okay, because I’m just here to help you.” She’s a great lady, absolutely a great lady. She guided me through the channels and made it happen.
We went to New Jersey in April 2002. We were allowed four family members, each family. We went in to hear it and I went through it twice. They had a transcript on the wall that we were able to see and read in sequence with hearing the audio. And I heard Tom’s voice for the first time in several months, and it gave me this incredible sense of peace that I had not expected to find through listening to it. And the peace came because, I think, for the first time in months I knew exactly what had happened by hearing the sounds and being able to visualize what he experienced. After that, it just gave me the energy and the strength to keep moving forward, to keep doing the things that needed to be done, in raising my family and making sure that those responsible for September 11th came to justice.
IgnatiusInsight.com: In the months following 9/11 you gave numerous interviews on high profile televisions programs and dealt with the media quite often. What is your impression, in general of the mainstream media, and how do you think they’ve handled coverage of 9/11 and its aftermath?
Deena Burnett: I think that almost immediately the press was very respectful, and I was incredibly grateful for that. I initially was very afraid of the media. I kind of laugh about that now because I had a degree in journalism, and yet I was scared to death. But they were very respectful. One thing that I have found during the five years is that they have been very interested in different family members — any family members, it doesn’t matter who they are — who had something to do with September 11th, and they have created this aura of casting 9/11 family members as authorities on different issues, whether it be political issues, or issues dealing with the war on terrorism. Anything happening with our government having to do with immigration laws, the transportation department, or the war on terrorism, the first thing they do is pull a 9/11 family member away and start interviewing them: “What do you think?”
They have cast them in roles of authority, and I think that is odd, that there would be so much interest in the opinion of 9/11 family members. You know, we have this one experience to fall back upon; I’m sure there are people who are far better qualified than we are to answer most of the questions the media asks concerning these issues.
We can fix the IRS problem by going to the flat tax and lowering the size of government. Why the IRS Persecuted the Tea Party and How to Fix the Problem May 27, 2013 by Dan Mitchell Did President Obama and his team of Chicago cronies deliberately target the Tea Party in hopes of thwarting free speech […]
How can a loving God allow evil like the Boston Marathon explosions to happen? Here are some of the details of the explosions: Boston Marathon Explosion 04/15/2013 Published on Apr 15, 2013 Prayers go out to the victims and their families! View this image › Via: @theoriginalwak The Boston Globe is reporting that at least a […]
The Bible and Archaeology (1/5) For many more archaeological evidences in support of the Bible, see Archaeology and the Bible . (There are some great posts on this too at the bottom of this post.) Till Is Batting Around .250 on Daniel by Everette Hatcher III 1999 / March-April Let me address three of the […]
Here are videos from the HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? film series: Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 “The Age of Fragmentation”, episode 7 “The Age of Non-Reason” , episode 6 “The Scientific Age” , episode 5 […]
Is the USA endanger of going broke? The answer is yes, although liberals don’t want to admit it. Elwood from the Arkansas Times Blog objected, take a look below: How many paid attention to Cager Griffin on AETN debates using the familiar FEAR TACTIC of “AMERICA IS BROKE” in danger of becoming another “GREECE?” …Fayetteville […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) Roger Ebert called this flick one of Allen’s best. The director, pictured with cinematographer Sven Nykvist on set, was nominated for three Academy Awards, including best director and writing. “Who else but Woody Allen could make a movie in which virtue is punished, evildoing is rewarded and there is a lot of […]
The Associated Press reported today: The signature under the typewritten words on yellowing sheets of nearly century-old paper is unmistakable: Adolf Hitler, with the last few scribbled letters drooping downward. The date is 1919 and, decades before the Holocaust, the 30-year-old German soldier — born in Austria — penned what are believed to be […]
Print-friendly version
Deena Burnett: Well, as early as the morning of September 11th, I was requesting to hear the cockpit voice recorder. I felt like it would just give me some answers as to what happened in those final moments. I didn’t know how to go about finding someone who could allow me to hear it. Anyone who had anything to do with the government, I’d just ask them, “Help me.” Very early on I met a lady, Ellen Tauscher, a representative from California, who really took me on as her project and helped me. She helped me go through the channels, writing the letters and making the phone calls and putting the pressure on different channels within the FBI and our government to release that cockpit voice recorder. I have told her so many times, “You know, Ellen, that you did this; it was you, but I’m getting all the credit for it.” And she would just laugh and say, “That’s okay, because I’m just here to help you.” She’s a great lady, absolutely a great lady. She guided me through the channels and made it happen.
The Daily Hatch 
