Do you think protectionism would help, in the long run, if we don’t implement pro-growth reforms?

Do you think protectionism would help, in the long run, if we don’t implement pro-growth reforms?

Sometimes I wonder what are the motives of those who oppose free trade.

Eight Questions for Protectionists

Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell

When asked to pick my most frustrating issue, I could list things from my policy field such as class warfare or income redistribution.

But based on all the speeches and media interviews I do, which periodically venture into other areas, I suspect protectionism vs. free trade is the biggest challenge.

So I want to ask the protectionists (though anybody is free to provide feedback) how they would answer these simple questions.

1. Do you think politicians and bureaucrats should be able to tell you what you’re allowed to buy?

As Walter Williams has explained, this is a simple matter of freedom and liberty. If you want to give the political elite the authority to tell you whether you can buy foreign-produced goods, you have opened the door to endless mischief.

2. If trade barriers between nations are good, then shouldn’t we have trade barriers between states? Or cities?

This is a very straightforward challenge. If protectionism is good, then it shouldn’t be limited to national borders.

3. Why is it bad that foreigners use the dollars they obtain to invest in the American economy instead of buying products?

Little green pieces of paper have little value to foreign companies. They only accept those dollars in exchange for products because they intend to use them, either to buy American products or to invest in the U.S. economy. Indeed, a “capital surplus” is the flip side of a “trade deficit.” This generally is a positive sign for the American economy (though I freely admit this argument is weakened if foreigners use dollars to “invest” in federal government debt).

4. Do you think protectionism would be necessary if America did pro-growth reforms such as a lower corporate tax rate, less wasteful spending, and reduced red tape?

There are thousands of hard-working Americans that have lost jobs because of foreign competition. At some level, this is natural in a dynamic economy, much as candle makers lost jobs when the light bulb was invented. But oftentimes American producers can’t meet the challenge of foreign competition because of bad policy from Washington. When I think of ordinary Americans that have lost jobs, I direct my anger at the politicians in DC, not a foreign company or foreign workers.

5. Do you think protectionism would help, in the long run, if we don’t implement pro-growth reforms?

If we travel down the path of protectionism, politicians will use that as an excuse not to implement pro-growth reforms. This condemns America to a toxic combination of two bad policies – big government and trade distortions. This will destroy far more jobs and opportunity that foreign competition.

6. Do you recognize that, by creating the ability to offer special favors to selected industries, protectionism creates enormous opportunities for corruption?

Most protectionism in America is the result of organized interest groups and powerful unions trying to prop up inefficient practices. And they only achieve their goals by getting in bed with the Washington crowd in a process that is good for the corrupt nexus of interest groups-lobbyists-politicians-bureaucrats.

7. If you don’t like taxes, why would you like taxes on imports?

A tariff is nothing but a tax that politicians impose on selected products. This presumably makes protectionism inconsistent with the principles of low taxes and limited government.

8. Can you point to nations that have prospered with protectionism, particularly when compared to similar nations with free trade?

Some people will be tempted to say that the United States was a successful economy in the 1800s when tariffs financed a significant share of the federal government. That’s largely true, but the nation’s rising prosperity surely was due to the fact that we had no income tax, a tiny federal government, and very little regulation. And I can’t resist pointing out that the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff didn’t exactly lead to good results.

We also had internal free trade, as explained in this excellent short video on the benefits of free trade, narrated by Don Boudreaux of George Mason University and produced by theInstitute for Humane Studies.

Uploaded by  on Aug 31, 2011

According to Prof. Don Boudreaux, free trade is nothing more than a system of trade that treats foreign goods and services no differently than domestic goods and services. Protectionism, on the other hand, is a system of trade that discriminates against foreign goods and services in an attempt to favor domestic goods and services. In theory, free trade outperforms protectionism by bringing lower cost goods and services to consumers. In practice, the benefits of free trade can be seen in countries like America and Hong Kong. Both countries have a relatively high degree of free trade, and, as a consequence, have experienced an explosion of wealth.

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Free Trade v. Protectionism

My closing argument is that people who generally favor economic freedom should ask themselves whether it’s legitimate or logical to make an exception in the case of foreign trade.

September 25, 2011 – 2:22 pm Categories: Cato Institute | Post a comment

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A Christian Manifesto by Francis Schaeffer (Part 4) (Schaeffer Sundays)

Part 1

Part 2

Below is a summary of “A Christian Manifesto” which is a very important book written by Francis Schaeffer just a couple of years before his death in 1984.

A Christian Manifesto
by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer

This address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title.

The January 11 Newsweek has an article about the baby in the womb. The first 5 or 6 pages are marvelous. If you haven’t seen it, you should see if you can get that issue. It’s January 11 and about the first 5 or 6 pages show conclusively what every biologist has known all along, and that is that human life begins at conception. There is no other time for human life to begin, except at conception. Monkey life begins at conception. Donkey life begins at conception. And human life begins at conception. Biologically, there is no discussion — never should have been — from a scientific viewpoint. I am not speaking of religion now. And this 5 or 6 pages very carefully goes into the fact that human life begins at conception. But you flip the page and there is this big black headline, “But is it a person?” And I’ll read the last sentence, “The problem is not determining when actual human life begins, but when the value of that life begins to out weigh other considerations, such as the health or even the happiness of the mother.”

We are not just talking about the health of the mother (it’s a propaganda line), or even the happiness of the mother. Listen! Spell that out! It means that the mother, for her own hedonistic happiness — selfish happiness — can take human life by her choice, by law. Do you understand what I have said? By law, on the basis of her individual choice of what makes her happy. She can take what has been declared to be, in the first five pages [of the article], without any question, human life. In other words, they acknowledge that human life is there, but it is an open question as to whether it is not right to kill that human life if it makes the mother happy.

And basically that is no different than Stalin, Mao, or Hitler, killing who they killed for what they conceived to be the good of society. There is absolutely no line between the two statements — no absolute line, whatsoever. One follows along: Once that it is acknowledged that it is human life that is involved (and as I said, this issue of Newsweek shows conclusively that it is) the acceptance of death of human life in babies born or unborn, opens the door to the arbitrary taking of any human life. From then on, it’s purely arbitrary.

It was this view that opened the door to all that followed in Germany prior to Hitler. It’s an interesting fact here that the only Supreme Court in the Western World that has ruled against easy abortion is the West German Court. The reason they did it is because they knew, and it’s clear history, that this view of human life in the medical profession and the legal profession combined, before Hitler came on the scene, is what opened the way for everything that happened in Hitler’s Germany. And so, the German Supreme Court has voted against easy abortion because they know — they know very well where it leads.

I want to say something tonight. Not many of you are black in this audience. I can’t tell if you are Puerto Rican. But if I were in the minority group in this country, tonight, I would be afraid. I’ve had big gorgeous blacks stand up in our seminars and ask, “Sir, do you think there is a racial twist to all this?” And I have to say, “Right on! You’ve hit it right on the head!” Once this door is opened, there is something to be afraid of. Christians should be deeply concerned, and I cannot understand why the liberal lawyer of the Civil Liberties Union is not scared to death by this open door towards human life. Everyone ought to be frightened who knows anything about history — anything about the history of law, anything about the history of medicine. This is a terrifying door that is open.

Abortion itself would be worth spending much of our lifetimes to fight against, because it is the killing of human life, but it’s only a symptom of the total. What we are facing is Humanism: Man, the measure of all things — viewing final reality being only material or energy shaped by chance — therefore, human life having no intrinsic value — therefore, the keeping of any individual life or any groups of human life, being purely an arbitrary choice by society at the given moment.

The flood doors are wide open. I fear both they, and too often the Christians, do not have just relativistic values (because, unhappily, Christians can live with relativistic values) but, I fear, that often such people as the liberal lawyers of the Civil Liberties Union and Christians, are just plain stupid in regard to the lessons of history. Nobody who knows his history could fail to be shaken at the corner we have turned in our culture. Remember why: because of the shift in the concept of the basic reality!

Now, we cannot be at all surprised when the liberal theologians support these things, because liberal theology is only Humanism using theological terms, and that’s all it ever was, all the way back into Germany right after the Enlightenment. So when they come down on the side of easy abortion and infanticide, as some of these liberal denominations as well as theologians are doing, we shouldn’t be surprised. It follows as night after day.

I have a question to ask you, and that is: Where have the Bible-believing Christians been in the last 40 years? All of this that I am talking about has only come in the last 80 years (I’m 70… I just had my birthday, so just 10 years older than I am). None of this was true in the United States. None of it! And the climax has all come within the last 40 years, which falls within the intelligent scope of many of you sitting in this room. Where have the Bible-believing Christians been? We shouldn’t be surprised the liberal theologians have been no help — but where have we been as we have changed to this other consensus and all the horrors and stupidity of the present moment has come down on out culture? We must recognize that this country is close to being lost. Not, first of all , because of the Humanist conspiracy — I believe that there are those who conspire, but that is not the reason this country is almost lost. This country is almost lost because the Bible-believing Christians, in the last 40 years, who have said that they know that the final reality is this infinite-personal God who is the Creator and all the rest, have done nothing about it as the consensus has changed. There has been a vast silence!

Christians of this country have simply been silent. Much of the Evangelical leadership has not raised a voice. As a matter of fact, it was almost like sticking pins into the Evangelical constituency in most places to get them interested in the issue of human life while Dr. Koop and Franky and I worked on Whatever Happened to the Human Race, a vast, vast silence.

I wonder what God has to say to us? All these freedoms we have. All the secondary blessings we’ve had out of the preaching of the Gospel and we have let it slip through our fingers in the lifetime of most of you here. Not a hundred years ago — it has been in our lifetime in the last 40 years that these things have happened.

It’s not only the Christian leaders. Where have the Christian lawyers been? Why haven’t they been challenging this change in the view of what the First Amendment means, which I’ll deal with in a second. Where have the Christian doctors been — speaking out against the rise of the abortion clinics and all the other things? Where have the Christian businessmen been — to put their lives and their work on the line concerning these things which they would say as Christians are central to them? Where have the Christian educators been — as we have lost our educational system? Where have we been? Where have each of you been? What’s happened in the last 40 years?

September 25, 2011 – 12:34 am Categories: Francis Schaeffer | Post a comment

Is God responsible for evil events like 9/11? (Part 2) jh49

Ravi Zacharias

Uploaded by on Feb 21, 2010

Sorry I missed recording the first few minutes of this but it is still worth watching. John Lennox is a mathematician who debated Richard Dawkins in “The God Delusion Debate”.

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Some people have suggested that God was responsible for evil in the world  and that meant that he was responsible for 9/11. However,  I wanted to make the simple point today that there must be an absolute standard to judge evil by and most atheists do not have that. Of course, Christians have the Bible.

Today we have  a growing number of atheists because of the secular humanism in the schools. The teaching of humanism in the area of moral choices has been the main reason for this. Our students are being taught that we all are a product of chance and there are no absolutes.

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).

It’s no wonder, then, that a humanist 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. However, I know how moral relativism works, and I expected that Mrs. Leitner would soon be challenged by her fellow humanists. 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)

Do you see where our moral relativism has taken us in the USA?

I had a chance back in 1996 to visit with a gentleman by the name of Robert Lester Mondale while he was retired in Missouri.  He was born on May 28, 1904 and he died on August 19, 2003. He was an Unitarian minister and a humanist. In fact, he was the only person to sign all three of the Humanist Manifestos of 1933, 1973 and 2003. In my conversation with him he mentioned that he had the opportunity to correspond with John Dewey who was one of Mondale’s fellow signers of the 1933 Humanist Manifesto I.

I really believe that the influence of John Dewey’s humanistic philosophy has won the battle of the textbooks in the USA today (with evolution teaching being a key component). As a result, we have people like humanist Abigail Ann Martin who wrote, “Neither am I an advocate of Hitler; however, by whose criteria is he evil?” Check out this excellent article by Greg Koukl:

Bosnia, Rape and the Problem of Evil

Gregory Koukl

Greg responds to a letter to the editor in which the writer’s pain causes him to ask the age-old question of why God allows evil to exist. divider

I was reading the L.A. Times today in the letters to the editor section and there was a letter written by a gentleman in Newport Beach that was a response to a tragic story that the Times had carried a few days ago. Maybe some of you had seen that story or have read about it in the local papers about not just the rank and file tragedy in Bosnia- Hertzegovena, not about the general tragedy of war. The article was about the problems of the refugees and also a women being victimized by soldiers.

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…we say, “Why, God? Why me? Why this pain? Why this difficulty?”

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This respondent writes, “Glancing at your April 10 paper my eyes fell upon the tragic story ‘Ordeals Put Off Bosnia Rape Victim’s Healing.’ My heart ached for Amira, the 35 year old Muslim woman, mother of two children, suffering the loss of her husband, wandering about the countryside begging to survive. Placed in a detention camp, raped repeatedly by Serb soldiers acting as animal pigs rather than humans, the woman became another tragic victim of human wickedness. Where is mankind headed? My thoughts turn to God and ask, ‘Why, God? Why did you create such monsters? God, are you for real?’ If this is God’s way of teaching or testing my faith”, he continues, ” then my beliefs and faith are being shattered with contempt instead. Having just lost my wife to cancer, maybe my feelings are more prone and fragile to be torn apart and my feelings turn more intensely to those who are suffering also.” It’s signed Victor Jashinski in Newport Beach.There’s probably hardly a person listening to this account that does not feel the same emotion with him. First of all, we feel the sense of horror as we read about the kinds of things that other people do to each other. Just a couple of days ago was the last of a five part series of “The Holocaust” that was on the Family Channel which was re-aired for the first time in fifteen years. But in any event, seeing again in vivid portrayal what man is capable of doing, our hearts and our minds are taken with this situation. Not only that, but we are also touched by evil in the world ourselves as we look at circumstances and we’re horrified. We also look at pains in our own life as this man has reflected and we say, “Why, God? Why me? Why this pain? Why this difficulty?” And this is really one of the most thorny problems and one of the most complex problems that anyone, regardless of their philosophical avocations or persuasions, has to address.

There is no way that I’m going to resolve this in ten minutes because this problem in its fullness, in its entirety resists a thorough resolution. I think there’s some good responses, but for the most part it is something that we kind of have to live with . But I would like to give some thoughts that may provide a few guidelines for you in dealing with this yourself and people like this gentleman as they face these circumstances both outside of their life and inside of their life.

My policy in dealing with a difficult, tricky problem that defies a thorough-going solution is to work from the known to the unknown. There are some things I think we can know about this issue. We can draw some conclusions that will at least clear the deck a bit and help us to focus on those things that are less clear and less resolvable, and maybe demystify the question for us, and maybe make our hearts feel a little better about the issue.

One of the things I need to say at the outset, by the way, is that’s it’s very important to distinguish between the issue of evil and suffering as a philosophic problem and the problem of evil from a pastoral perspective. Actually, both were raised in this letter. Why does God allow evil in the world such that a female Bosnian refugee might be subjected to repeated rape by Serbian soldiers? Why does the problem happen out there (which is the philosophic question) but why does evil hurt me? That’s a different kind of question because that’s an emotional response. Even people who have resolved the issue of evil philosophically still shudder under its impact when it hits them. Even though their mind may have answers their heart still asks “Why?” when they become victimized by evil in the world. So we see both kinds here.

I’m going to start out by trying to deal with the philosophic problem and then make a comment about the pastoral problem. They are distinct questions.

By the way, when someone comes to you with the pastoral issue, you can’t resolve that by giving them a philosophic answer. It just doesn’t work . That’s not their need. Their need isn’t their mind at that point or their intellect; their need is their heart, the grief they are going through. There’s a different kind of approach there. I’m actually better at the first than the second. I’m better at the intellectual part than the pastoral part. That’s why I’m a radio talk show host and not a church shepherd as many pastors are. My gifts are different. In any event, let me try to deal with the philosophic problem first and then briefly address the pastoral issue.

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So if there is no God, there can’t be any evil, only personal likes and dislikes–what I prefer morally and what I don’t prefer morally.

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One thing to note, by the way, is that this man presumes that God made man this way (“Why, God, why did you create such monsters?”). Now if you are thinking from a Biblical perspective, you know that that is not the case. The Bible does not teach that God created monsters. It teaches that He created human beings that were not monsters at all but were good. They didn’t have this propensity and proclivity for evil. He didn’t make man with that. But He did make man with the possibility of going wrong and the writer’s response here is really a response questioning the character of God. “How could You do this? What kind of God are you? Are you for real?” are other questions which are the approach that most people usually take when struggling with evil. In other words, when they see this kind of thing they don’t question the character of man, which in my point of view would be a sensible response. (You’ll understand why I say that in just a moment.) Instead they attack the existence of God. In other words, they say since there is evil in the world then God can’t exist. This is not a reasonable response. It is not a rational response. It is not a fruitful answer to the philosophic problem of evil and I’m going to tell you why that just can’t work.

What doesn’t make sense is to look at the existence of evil and question the existence of God. The reason is that atheism turns out being a self-defeating philosophic solution to this problem of evil. Think of what evil is for a minute when we make this kind of objection. Evil is a value judgment that must be measured against a morally perfect standard in order to be meaningful. In other words, something is evil in that it departs from a perfect standard of good. C.S. Lewis made the point, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call something crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”[ 1 ] He also goes on to point out that a portrait is a good or a bad likeness depending on how it compares with the “perfect” original. So to talk about evil, which is a departure from good, actually presumes something that exists that is absolutely good. If there is no God there’s no perfect standard, no absolute right or wrong, and therefore no departure from that standard. So if there is no God, there can’t be any evil, only personal likes and dislikes–what I prefer morally and what I don’t prefer morally.

This is the big problem with moral relativism as a moral point of view when talking about the problem of evil. If morality is ultimately a matter of personal taste–that’s what most people hold nowadays–then it’s just your opinion what’s good or bad, but it might not be my opinion. Everybody has their own view of morality and if it’s just a matter of personal taste–like preferring steak over broccoli or Brussels sprouts–the objection against the existence of God based on evil actually vanishes because the objection depends on the fact that some things are intrinsically evil–that evil isn’t just a matter of my personal taste, my personal definition. But that evil has absolute existence and the problem for most people today is that there is no thing that is absolutely wrong. Premarital sex? If it’s right for you. Abortion? It’s an individual choice. Killing? It depends on the circumstances. Stealing? Not if it’s from a corporation.

The fact is that most people are drowning in a sea of moral relativism. If everything is allowed then nothing is disallowed. Then nothing is wrong. Then nothing is ultimately evil. What I’m saying is that if moral relativism is true, which it seems like most people seem to believe–even those that object against evil in the world, then the talk of objective evil as a philosophical problem is nonsense. To put it another way, if there is no God, then morals are all relative. And if moral relativism is true, then something like true moral evil can’t exist because evil becomes a relative thing.

An excellent illustration of this point comes from the movie The Quarrel . In this movie, a rabbi and a Jewish secularist meet again after the Second World War after they had been separated. They had gotten into a quarrel as young men, separated on bad terms, and then had their village and their family and everything destroyed through the Second World War, both thinking the other was dead. They meet serendipitously in Toronto, Canada in a park and renew their friendship and renew their old quarrel.

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To paraphrase the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer, the person who argues against the existence of God based on the existence of evil in the world has both feet firmly planted in mid-air.

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Rabbi Hersch says to the secularist Jew Chiam, “If a person does not have the Almighty to turn to, if there’s nothing in the universe that’s higher than human beings, then what’s morality? Well, it’s a matter of opinion. I like milk; you like meat. Hitler likes to kill people; I like to save them. Who’s to say which is better? Do you begin to see the horror of this? If there is no Master of the universe then who’s to say that Hitler did anything wrong? If there is no God then the people that murdered your wife and kids did nothing wrong.”

That is a very, very compelling point coming from the rabbi. In other words, to argue against the existence of God based on the existence of evil forces us into saying something like this: Evil exists, therefore there is no God. If there is no God then good and evil are relative and not absolute, so true evil doesn’t exist, contradicting the first point. Simply put, there cannot be a world in which it makes any sense to say that evil is real and at the same time say that God doesn’t exist. If there is no God then nothing is ultimately bad, deplorable, tragic or worthy of blame. The converse, by the way, is also true. This is the other hard part about this, it cuts both ways. Nothing is ultimately good, honorable, noble or worthy of praise. Everything is ultimately lost in a twilight zone of moral nothingness. To paraphrase the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer, the person who argues against the existence of God based on the existence of evil in the world has both feet firmly planted in mid-air.

No, the existence of the problem forces us into some kind of theistic solution. This is a good thing, which brings me to my third point. If atheism is a self-defeating philosophic solution to the problem, and some kind of theism is necessary, then it seems to me that theism is one of the only satisfying pastoral solutions to the problem.

Let’s say for example that you are suffering with some kind of pain and evil in your life and you come to the conclusion that there is no God. What is the solution to the problem of your personal pain? The only solution I can think of is that your personal pain and suffering are meaningless. They are useless. They are helpless. And, in fact, it reminds me of Os Guiness in his fine book The Dust of Death , which has just been re-released, where he makes the point in regards to eastern religion that many eastern religions hold that the world is just an illusion–Hinduism characteristically. He quotes from a poet of the Eastern tradition who had just experienced tremendous tragedy in his life. He went to his avatar to get some comfort from his religious leader after his wife and children had been killed. His religious leader simply said to him in the face of this terrible anguish, “The world is dew.” His point was that it’s all an illusion anyway. The poet went back and he wrote this poem, a simple poem, only four lines : “The world is dew. The world is dew. And yet….And yet….” In other words the religious answer his religious leader was that the evil simply didn’t exist. But he knew personally that it wasn’t dew, that it wasn’t an illusion. It was there. It was real and it was impacting his life. But what comfort was there in that–nothing whatsoever.

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If God wiped out all the evil in the world tonight at midnight, where would you and I be at 12:01?

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If there is no God then there is no answer to the pastoral question of personal suffering and evil . It ‘s not there–your suffering is meaningless. But if there is a God, and if that God is the God of the Bible, then at least we have the potential of an answer. There’s some kind of comfort there. God is ultimately good and just, and one day the accounts will be perfectly balanced. We can place ourselves in the hands of a powerful Creator who, by all other evidence, loves us, cares for us and comforts the afflicted. One Who will not break off a bent reed and Who will not put out a smoldering wick. One Who will hold us close to Himself. There is at least the possibility that this suffering and pain can make sense because God can use it for good in our lives.

We might ask ourselves the question, Why does God put up with this kind of evil in the world? The rapes, the war in Bosnia Hertzegovena, for example? My response is that God puts up with that kind of evil for the same reason he puts up with your evil and with my evil for the time being. I’m not going to try to explain what that reason is now. The point I’m making is that this justice issue cuts both ways.

If God wiped out all the evil in the world tonight at midnight, where would you and I be at 12:01? See, the fact is that God’s going to do a complete job when he finally deals with evil. C.S. Lewis makes the point when he says, “I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does….When the author walks on the stage the play is over.”[ 2 ] Evil deeds can never be isolated from the evil doer. Our prints, yours and mine, are on the smoking gun.

What’s curious to me in dealing with this issue is that no one raises the issue of whether one ought to continue to believe in the goodness of man after these kinds of tragedies. We see things like the Holocaust, the crime level, the innocent suffering at the hands of other human beings more often than not, and instead of shaking our fists at humankind who perpetrate the action we shake our fists at God. I don’t get it.

Dennis Prager says, “Whenever I meet someone who claims to find faith in God impossible, but who persists in believing in the essential goodness of humanity, I know that I have met a person for whom evidence is irrelevant.” ( Ultimate Issues , July- September, 1989) I like that. I think that hits the nail on the head.

The last thought I will offer is just another curious one from my perspective as I hear these kinds of responses. We live our lives in rebellion to God, constantly disobeying Him, constantly disregarding him, refusing to live according to His precepts and according to His rules, and then we wonder where He is when things go wrong.

Let that one sink in a little bit.

1 Lewis, Clive Staples, Mere Christianity.
2 ibid.

September 25, 2011 – 12:20 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

Barrett Jones of Alabama Crimson Tide (Part 1 of series “Christians in Athletics”)

Today I am starting a new series called “Christians in Athletics.”  Barrett Jones grew up under the ministry of Adrian Rogers at Bellevue. Below is a clip from the Memorial Service for Dr. Rogers.

Barrett Jones of Alabama Crimson Tide has spent time the last two years ministering to earthquake victims in Haiti. Actually I wrote about Barrett’s faith in Christ and you can read my article at this link.

I am hoping my Arkansas Razorbacks win the game tomorrow, but Barrett Jones is a winner in life because of his relationship with Christ. He has been a Christian leader on that team and even Coach Saban has noticed.

Heart of an Athlete
Aug/Sept 2010

 

Q&A with Barrett Jones
University of Alabama
Offensive Lineman		  

Last season, sophomore offensive lineman Barrett Jones helped the University of Alabama football team win their 13th national championship. The right guard blocked his way to Freshman All-American honors after spending his Saturdays opening holes for Heisman Trophy-winning running back Mark Ingram. Jones also stayed active off the gridiron as a member of both the Crimson Tide’s FCA Huddle and Campus Crusade for Christ; spent his spring break caring for earthquake survivors in Haiti; and maintained a 4.0 GPA in the classroom.

STV: Tell us what it’s like to win a national championship.
BJ: It was amazing because it was the culmination of all the hard work our team had put in. Winning the national championship fulfilled all my athletic dreams on the biggest stage.

STV: Do they let the linemen hold the crystal football from the BCS Championship trophy?
BJ: Yeah, I got to hold it, kiss it, and get my picture taken with it. I don’t know the official weight of real crystal, but it was heavy. I was kind of freaking out when I held it, and I was the last person who got to hold it before the coaches took it away. I don’t think they wanted it to get messed up.

STV: What did your individual honors mean to you?
BJ:I was just happy to be a part of such a great team. Individual honors follow successful teams. It was an honor to be named a Freshman All-American, but I was actually more proud of being named an Academic All-American because of how difficult it was to perform well in the classroom while playing sports.

 “I held the crystal football, but it didn’t compare to having a relationship with Jesus.”

STV: You are also involved with FCA at Alabama. In your opinion, why is it important for there to be athletic ministries on a college campus?
BJ: Ministries keep athletes focused on what is important. With all the other things going on, ministries are important in helping us stay focused on Jesus.

STV: Have you been able to share your faith with your teammates?
BJ: Yeah, I’ve had the opportunity to share with them, but it’s something I could do more often. I feel very blessed to have a relationship with the Lord and the testimony of understanding that earthly trophies are only temporary. I mean, there I was on the national championship team—the pinnacle of the college football world—holding the crystal trophy, but I still knew it didn’t have any eternal value. I held the crystal football, but it didn’t compare to having a relationship with Jesus.

STV: Athletes will be so encouraged by your message and inspired by the fact that you spent your spring break in Haiti. What was that experience like?
BJ: I don’t know if I can sum it up in words. I’d wanted to do something like that for a long time, and God showed me that it was where I should be. We worked at a refugee camp outside of Port-Au-Prince with kids who had lost everything. It was amazing to listen to their stories of how they survived the earthquake. We worry about so many things, and yet these kids have nothing but are still so happy. It really put my life and blessings in perspective. 

 

About the Athlete

 

School: University of Alabama
Hometown: Memphis, Tenn.
Class: RS Sophomore
Position: Offensive Line

Career notes:
•2009 American Football Coaches Association and The Sporting News First Team Freshman All-American
•2009 SEC All-Freshman Team
•2009 Second Team Academic All-American

FCA Staff Quote:
“Barrett is a great player, but long after ’Bama’s fans forget about the blocks he threw, he truly hopes they remember the Christ he followed. Barrett is steady and consistent, and he makes the most of his opportunities for the Kingdom.” – Gary Cramer, University of Alabama FCA Director

There’s more to the Jones family than playing football

By Chase Goodbread
Sports Writer
Published: Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. | The Joneses don’t quite fit the definition of ‘first family’ when it comes to football at the University of Alabama.

The Castilles, the Hannahs, the Croyles — all multi-generational football legacies at the Capstone — might be more fitting of that distinction in its most classic sense. For strings of related UA football players from a single generation, the Britts and the Goodes have the Joneses outnumbered, for the time being.

That’s OK. Football doesn’t come first for Rex and Leslie Jones — or their children — anyway.

“Faith has pretty much been the centerpost of what Leslie and I decided to build our family around,” said Rex Jones, former Alabama basketball player and father of UA football players Barrett and Harrison Jones. “We agreed to base it all on biblical truth. Now that our boys are 20, 18 and 16, we can look back and say we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Barrett, Harrison and the youngest, Walker — who is a standout sophomore football player at Memphis Evangel Christian like his brothers before him — grew up in a household that was as athletically competitive as any. With a family history of athletes that goes back decades on both sides, it’s of little wonder.

Living in a basketball-is-king town like Memphis, and matriculating at a football-is-king college like Alabama, it’s of greater wonder that sports in the Jones family never escape their proper perspective.

Back when I played

Every day after school, Rex Jones used to pedal his bicycle a couple of miles to the University of Montevallo gym to watch dad do his thing.

His father, Bill Jones, had his first basketball coaching job at a four-year college, and wasn’t about to just blow a whistle with it. He took care of the gym floor. He taped ankles. It was the early 1970s, and Alabama football coach Paul W. “Bear” Bryant was already an icon in the state, laying the groundwork for his fourth national championship team.

But the only ball Rex Jones cared about didn’t have laces on it. All he wanted to do was shoot hoops.

And in time, all he wanted was to do it at Alabama.

“I fell in love with (former UA basketball coach) C.M. Newton because every year he would do a basketball camp in Huntsville, Florence and maybe Mobile,” said Jones. “He had three camps each summer, and Florence was one of the areas he came to. From the sixth grade on, I went to basketball camp with Coach Newton, Coach (Wimp) Sanderson, Coach (John) Bostic, all those coaches would come to our school.”

Rex Jones earned a basketball scholarship to Alabama, where he played as a reserve from 1981-84 behind seven eventual NBA draft choices. Meanwhile, Bill Jones was busy building a legacy as basketball coach and athletic director at the University of North Alabama. UNA won the NCAA Division II national championship and made four Final Four appearances under Jones, who died two years ago at 72. He coached 202 career games at Flowers Hall, UNA’s home court, and won 165 of them. One of his assistant coaches was current Alabama women’s basketball coach Wendell Hudson, who left a job as a men’s assistant at UA to work for Jones.

“Going from Alabama to a smaller school like UNA, it was looked upon by peers of mine like, ‘What are you doing?,’” said Hudson. “But I can look back and say it was one of the best moves I ever made. I needed to grow as a coach, and to go from a staff of four to a staff of two is what made that happen. There was no finer person than Bill Jones, and he allowed me to try all kinds of things. He and I did it all — the Xs and Os, the scouting, the recruiting. It was a great experience.”

Athleticism in the Jones family goes back about as far as anyone is able to look.

Bill was a three-time basketball letterman at UNA from 1955-57. Rex’s wife Leslie has a family history rife with college football and basketball athletes from Russellville. Horton Smith, great grandfather to Rex’s three boys, never did get the chance. He had scholarship offers to play football, but his father needed him as a farm hand on their Lauderdale County property.

“What I know about that, I’ve just read in newspapers,” said Rex’s mother, Joan. “Playing sports in college then wasn’t the big deal then as it is now.”

Gifts aplenty

It would be an easy assumption, with two football players at Alabama and a third quite possibly bound for college football as well, that the Jones brothers have been carrying footballs since they were 3 years old.

Instead, the first thing Leslie Jones put in their hands was a violin. Mom had each eventually playling well enough to perform everywhere from school functions to weddings, from nursing homes to church services. In time, violin lessons gave way to sports. In fact, it was a finger injury sustained at a football practice that got Barrett out of a violin lesson that may have been his last. The end of his brothers’ violin days soon followed.

“They all quit at the same time,” Leslie said. “When Barrett got to quit, they all said, ‘Hey, that looks pretty good to me.’”

Barrett has earned Academic All-America honors and carries a double major in finance and accounting, and his younger brothers excel in the classroom as well. Harrison has a gift for electronics. Walker can play piano. All three can solve a Rubik’s Cube in minutes, and used to compete with their cube-solving skills using a timer.

At one point, it even appeared Barrett might be headed for a college career in basketball, like his father, rather than football. He traveled the country as a youngster playing in AAU tournaments, and didn’t become a full-time football player until about the 10th grade.

“I really liked basketball a lot and I still do, but I realized football might be my sport,” he said. “There is some carryover in the way you move your feet and get your hands up and stuff. That’s helped me an awful lot.”

Making a difference

Barrett Jones’ trip to Haiti over spring break to assist with earthquake relief efforts was well-documented. After a catastrophic quake killed thousands and left more than a million Haitians homeless in January, Jones and two friends, including walk-on UA player Hardie Buck, spent a week doing all they could to help Haiti rebuild from ruins. But it wasn’t Jones’ first experience with helping those in extreme need.

Not even close.

The Jones’ took all three of their children to Honduras nearly a decade ago on a family mission trip through their church, ministering to and helping those most in need following a hurricane. The violins came along for the trip, and the brothers used them as part of their mission testimony.

“I think it was the first time my kids had ever seen kids getting out of bed every day just looking for something to eat. That impacted them because of the way they eat — they eat like horses,” said Rex Jones. “We did a vacation Bible school, I took them into orphanages, a prison … you’d never imagine where I took them.”

Jim Heinz, who coached Barrett and Harrison at Memphis Evangel Christian before retiring, has witnessed first-hand what service to others means to the Jones boys. Heinz accompanied Barrett to San Antonio three years ago for the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, a week-long gathering of the nation’s top high school football players culminating with a nationally-televised contest.

Barrett was there for football, but he was struck by something else.

“The Army honored the soldiers all week and took the players to the hospital they had for the soldiers’ treatment,” Heinz said. “Barrett got to hear the soldiers about their service, and I felt like that meant about as much to him as playing in the game.”

Talk to some of the people who have gotten to know them best, and one will find the younger two brothers are about as well-grounded as the older. At least one pays the ultimate complement from one man to another: trust with a daughter.

“They still say their sirs and ma’ams, and they mean it. It’s very unusual,” said Belleview Baptist Church Pastor Steve Gaines. “There is no hypocrisy there, no fakeness there. My youngest daughter went with Harrison to a couple of proms. He’s a gentleman.”

Turning Crimson

Ironically, it may have been the coach of Alabama’s chief rival, then Auburn head football coach Tommy Tuberville, who played a key role in the decisions of Barrett and Harrison to play football for the Crimson Tide.

Barrett attended a summer camp at Auburn midway through his high school years, and though he was undersized for a lineman — 250 pounds, Rex estimated — and hadn’t yet sworn off basketball, he caught the attention of Hugh Nall, Auburn’s line coach at the time. The Jones’ spent an hour with Tuberville, who eventually gave Jones his first Southeastern Conference scholarship offer.

His advice?

“He said, ‘Barrett, figure out where you want to go to school and then play football there.’ That’s something we always stuck by,” said Leslie Jones. “And when it came down to it with Harrison, that’s what he went by, too.”

The family bought a custom van to make unofficial visits to colleges all over the country, both during Barrett’s recruitment and Harrison’s. They went to Auburn and Alabama, to Oklahoma and North Carolina, and more. But they kept coming back to Tuberville’s advice. And once Nick Saban — whom the Jones’ had met through Jimmy Sexton, a close family friend, neighbor, and Saban’s agent — had taken over the Alabama program program, there was little doubt where they would be going to college. Now, the Jones family is Crimson through and through — right down to the dog, Rose, so named because she was acquired in January just after UA’s national championship win over Texas in Rose Bowl Stadium.

And it didn’t take long for either Barrett or Harrison to blend in at UA.

Barrett has been a full-time starter at right guard since his redshirt freshman season. As a true freshman in 2008, he suffered a torn labrum, making for his second such injury — one in each shoulder — since high school. Normal rehabilitation would have projected to sideline Jones for spring practice in 2009, but he rehabbed more aggressively in order to participate in the spring and had taken command of a starting role by the following fall camp.

He hasn’t been out of the lineup since.

Harrison Jones’ UA career nearly got off to a slow start as well, but for a much different reason. Initial plans were to grayshirt the tight end, meaning he would defer his enrollment until next January. But when freshman signee Alfy Hill left camp in August for academic reasons, Barrett’s little brother was Saban’s choice to fill the vacant roster spot.

He joined the team only days before the school’s enrollment deadline, just before the season began, and got to miss all the two-a-day practices under grueling August heat. But his new teammates had some leftover heat saved for him.

“He came back to Alabama to join the team on the same day Brett Favre came back from skipping camp with the Vikings in the NFL,” said Rex Jones. “They nicknamed him Brett Favre from day one, because he’d missed camp.”

Reach Chase Goodbread at chase.goodbread@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0196.

Related posts:

SEC has 7 teams in preseason football top 25 rankings jh3

NEW YORK (AP)—Being voted preseason No. 1 is a tradition at Oklahoma, and this season is no different. The Sooners will start out top-ranked in The Associated Press college football poll for the 10th time, more than any program in the country. The defending Big 12 champions received 36 of 60 first-place votes and 1,464 points […]

Preview of Arkansas and Alabama in SEC West Football Division 2011 (SEC Preview Part 1) jh4

  Preview of Arkansas and Alabama in SEC today.   Recently John Brummett wrote an article on Peaches and I enjoyed it. Then promptly after that he was criticized for not sticking to serious subjects. I guess I am committing the same mistake with this new series I am starting today. I am going to […]

 

September 24, 2011 – 8:21 am Categories: Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Post a comment

“Soccer Saturday” Best Goals 2010 World Cup Part 2

“Soccer Saturday” Best Goals 2010 World Cup Part 2

2010 FIFA World Cup – Best Goals So Far…. Pt 4

Uploaded by  on Jul 8, 2010

I’m very very sorry for the quality of this video. I was much better the first time I uploaded it. I uploaded it about a week ago, it got 15,000 views and then Youtube removed it for a reason I still dont kno. These are all the best goals scored in the 2010 FIFA World Cup since part 3. Please rate, leave a comment, and Subscribe!!!

September 24, 2011 – 1:10 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

What does the Heritage Foundation have to say about saving Social Security:Study released May 10, 2011 (Part 7)

“Saving the American Dream: The Heritage Plan to Fix the Debt, Cut Spending, and Restore Prosperity,” Heritage Foundation, May 10, 2011 by  Stuart Butler, Ph.D. , Alison Acosta Fraser and William Beach is one of the finest papers I have ever read. Over the next few days I will post portions of this paper, but I will start off with the section on Social Security. I am also going to give attention to the thoughts of Milton Friedman on the subject too. Here is the seventh portion:

An Improved Savings Plan to Supplement Social Security. As Social Security is transformed into a real insurance system that focuses scarce resources on those who need them most, the plan also creates better ways for workers to build savings for retirement.

Beginning in 2014, a new savings plan will be introduced over two years. Under this plan, 6 percent of each worker’s income is placed in a retirement savings plan that the worker owns and controls unless he or she explicitly declines to have such an account. (This approach is known as automatic enrollment.)

This new, additional retirement security system gives Americans another tool with which to secure their retirement standard of living. Savings are invested through an improved version of the IRA/401(k) employment-based retirement savings system already familiar to Americans. The money put into these savings accounts will not be double-taxed, unlike today’s Social Security payments and many other savings mechanisms.

In addition to this new savings plan, workers have two other important ways to save for retirement.

First, under the reformed tax system detailed below, all savings (without limit) will no longer be double-taxed. Savings remain completely free of taxation until they are actually spent.

Second, as benefit reforms drive the costs of Social Security below the level of taxes collected, those savings will go into the workers’ accounts.

The Bottom Line

The Heritage plan reforms Social Security to create a retirement security system that will be available for future generations. It will be one that provides a reasonable, predictable, and affordable benefit that ensures that no retiree who has worked for 35 years or more faces poverty or economic insecurity. At the same time, this new system protects our children and grandchildren from the massive tax increase that would be necessary to pay all of the Social Security benefits that Washington has irresponsibly promised.

September 24, 2011 – 12:46 am Categories: Social Security | Post a comment

Rick Perry says Social Security is a Ponzi scheme

Rick Perry says Social Security is a Ponzi scheme

Rick Perry and Mitt Romney went after each other at the debate over this term “Ponzi scheme.”

Over and over Rick Perry has said that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and I agree with him. John Brummett asserted,”Rick Perry was last week’s savior, but then he got caught not believing in Social Security, which is a general election problem in, say, Florida.” However, it is my view that entitlements must be looked at and the cold hard facts show that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme!!!

__________

The Social Security Rorschach Test

by William Shipman

This article appeared on The Daily Caller on September 21, 2011

Comments by Rick Perry and Mitt Romney on Social Security during the last two Republican presidential debates may have provided more insight into these two men than expected — something to ponder with the next debate coming up.

Mr. Romney told us that he is “committed to saving Social Security” and that “under no circumstances would I ever say by any measure it’s a failure.”

Mr. Perry called the system a “Ponzi scheme” and said it’s “a monstrous lie” to tell young workers that their payroll taxes will provide them with Social Security benefits.

Bill Shipman is chairman of CarriageOaks Partners, LLC and co-chairman of the Cato Institute Project on Social Security Choice.

 

More by William G. Shipman

 Mr. Romney replied that Mr. Perry’s position could disqualify him as the GOP nominee. Apparently, a line has been drawn.

In his 2005 State of the Union Address, President Bush spent about 20 percent of his time talking about Social Security reform, specifically personal investment accounts. Democrats fought this idea with all their strength. Although it’s less well known, Republicans engaged in a family brawl in which many fought Mr. Bush’s investment-accounts idea, too. They were afraid that if they supported the president, they would lose their next elections.

But now the brawl has broken through the Republican skin and is in the open. What can we learn from this?

First, reflect upon Governor Romney’s point that Social Security is not a failure “by any measure,” and try to square that with the fact that Social Security is mandatory. Each worker is compelled to pay 10.6% of his wage, on up to $106,800, to the government for the retirement portion of the system. That means the average-wage earner has no choice on how to allocate 10.6% of his wage income for retirement. That’s bad enough, but it’s made worse by the fact that his Social Security benefits are very low: about half of what his Social Security taxes would provide if they were invested in a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds.

Second, in 1950, when there were 16 workers per beneficiary, the payroll tax rate was just 3% on $3,000 of wages. Since then the tax rate increased 18 times, and the wage subject to the tax increased 43 times. After adjusting for inflation the maximum tax jumped 1,322%. Benefits rose as well, but proportionally much less. The squeeze in benefits relative to taxes has progressively made the system a worse deal.

Third, Social Security’s actuaries estimate that the mismatch between future taxes and benefits is just under $7 trillion. That number represents what must be invested right now, in addition to all future payroll taxes, in order to pay scheduled benefits.

Finally, in the 1960 Flemming v. Nestor case, the Supreme Court ruled that workers have no property rights to their scheduled benefits. The government can reduce them at will, which it did in 1983 by increasing the retirement age from 65 to 67; or it can increase the tax at will, which it consistently has done. Also, when one member of an elderly couple dies, the government — in most cases — reduces Social Security benefits by a third. Sort of a death tax.

This system of no choice, low benefits relative to taxes, significant tax increases, a massive unfunded liability, the absence of personal property rights and a death tax apparently does not rise to the level of failure “by any measure” according to Gov. Romney.

For his part, Gov. Perry has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme: a fraudulent investment operation that pays subscribers not from investment earnings but from new subscribers’ funds. To entice subscribers, such schemes must provide unusually high and/or stable returns. Given that the high returns require endless new subscribers to pay off previous ones, such schemes ultimately fail.

Although Mr. Perry’s Ponzi analogy is not technically correct, it has some validity in that Social Security benefits are financed by ever more subscribers — that is, wage earners. But unlike a Ponzi scheme, Social Security is not fraudulent, and it doesn’t pay large benefits relative to taxes. Indeed, it pays low benefits. A Ponzi scheme promises high returns. That’s why people freely, although foolishly, play the game. Social Security promises low returns. That’s why people are forced to play the game.

Mr. Romney has stated that the Republican nominee must be committed to saving Social Security, not abolishing it. It’s not clear what he means. Does he want to save the objective of Social Security, which is, broadly speaking, the provision of retirement benefits? Or does he want to save its structure wherein today’s young finance benefits for today’s old?

Mr. Perry says the system is a Ponzi scheme and a lie. Does this mean that he wants to get rid of the structure yet keep the objective? Or does it mean that he wants to get rid of both?

The two candidates’ differences on this issue may shed light on bigger philosophical disagreements they may have. Do they see government as bungling but benign, only in need of a seasoned CEO who can more successfully manage the enterprise? Or do they see government as overreaching, stifling, oppressive and hurtful in its reach, and in need of a strong and principled leader to shove it out of the way?

How these candidates deal with Social Security, the government’s largest program, may shed light on who they really are.

September 24, 2011 – 12:32 am Categories: Cato Institute, Social Security | Post a comment

How can a good God allow the evil events of 9/11 to happen? (Part 1)jh58

Many of the family members of 9/11 victims have asked: 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?___________________________-

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Answers the problem of evil and a good God… puts the issue squarely in the lap of the skeptic asking the question (where it belongs).

_________________________________________

In his article “A Conversation with an Atheist,” Rick Wade notes:

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.

________________________________________

September 24, 2011 – 12:08 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

Stimulus did not work earlier and will not now (Part 2)

Dan Mitchell discusses the effectiveness of the stimulus

Uploaded by on Nov 3, 2009

11-2-09

 

When I think of all our hard earned money that has been wasted on stimulus programs it makes me sad. It has never worked and will not in the future too. Take a look at a few thoughts from Cato Institute:

Feeling Spent

by Michael D. Tanner

This article appeared in The New York Poston September 13, 2011. 

On Thursday night, the president laid out his plan for job creation, a $447 billion stimulus proposal, most of which we have seen before. After all, if Congress passes this new round of government spending, it would be the seventh such stimulus program since the recession began. George W. Bush pushed through two of them, totaling some $200 billion, and Obama already has enacted four more, with a total price tag of roughly $1.3 trillion.

The result: Three years and $1.5 trillion of spending later, we are back to the same gallimaufry of failed ideas. Among the worst:

3. Bailing Out the Teachers Unions. The president’s plan calls for spending $35 billion in grants to states to hire or retain some 280,000 teachers. The president wants to spend another $30 billion to repair and modernize school buildings, with the catch that school districts that accept the funds are prohibited from laying off any teachers. Spending on school building and repair has already increased by 150% over the last two decades, without either improving education or generating many jobs. And the greatest threat to teacher retention is not a lack of federal aid, but burdensome labor contracts.

4. More Infrastructure Spending. Like all the stimulus bills before it, the president’s latest proposal calls for still more pork barrel spending for “infrastructure.” One begins to wonder why we haven’t paved over the entire country by now. No doubt there are roads and bridges in need of repair, but the ability of the federal government to sort out good projects from bad is debatable at best. And the president is once again planning to plow money into such dubious projects as high-speed rail.

5. More Tax Hikes. Worst of all, the president plans to pay for all this new spending by — you guessed it — raising taxes on businesses and high-income Americans. The president, once again, referred to “millionaires and billionaires” in his speech, but his actual proposal calls for raising taxes on families earning as little as $250,000 per year. In places like New York, that’s not the “super rich.” In addition, many of these tax hikes would fall on small businesses. The president’s jobs plan, then, is to tax exactly those people and businesses that create jobs. And all this is on top of the new taxes and regulations that the Obama administration has already pushed through.

Michael D. Tanner is a Cato Institute senior fellow.

 

More by Michael D. Tanner

It’s not just the details of the president’s proposal that are wrongheaded, it’s the basic concept. The real drags on our economy have nothing to do with the failure of government to spend enough. The federal government is now spending roughly 24% of GDP. State and local governments are spending another 10% to 15%, meaning government at all levels is spending roughly 40 cents out of every dollar produced in this country. If government spending brought about prosperity, we should be experiencing a golden age.

The president’s plan is a bit like having someone break your leg then give you a crutch and call it a stimulus. Might it not be better to avoid breaking your leg in the first place? It’s time to stop spending, cut taxes, reduce our debt, and rollback burdensome regulation. That will generate far more jobs than any government jobs program.

When it comes to stimulus, the seventh time is not the charm.

September 24, 2011 – 12:02 am Categories: Cato Institute, President Obama, spending out of control | Post a comment

Bama’s star lineman Barrett Jones puts ministry first

Barrett Jones of Alabama Crimson Tide has spent time the last two years ministering to earthquake victims in Haiti. (Barrett grew up and went to ECS where I graduated and to Bellevue Baptist where I was a member while growing up. Adrian Rogers was the pastor from 1972 to 2004.) Actually I wrote about Barrett’s faith in Christ and you can read my article at this link.

I am hoping my Arkansas Razorbacks win the game tomorrow, but Barrett Jones is a winner in life because of his relationship with Christ. He has been a Christian leader on that team and even Coach Saban has noticed.

For the second straight year, Alabama right guard Barrett Jones spent his spring break helping people in Haiti.
TUSCALOOSA — Barrett Jones felt a compelling need to return to Haiti one year after he traveled there to volunteer following the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake.
Alabama’s right guard traded the chance to relax for another week, an annual college tradition. In return, he traveled with 31 people, including 13 UA classmates and his family, to help people still struggling with daily life. They worked on a school and an orphanage, and helped feed people in need.
More than a year after the earthquake rattled the Haitians’ world to dust, Jones was still trying to make sense of his own.
“We have problems day-to-day and week-to-week in our lives,” Jones said. “We make such a big deal about them and we think they’re so extreme. You go over there and you literally see somebody who has nothing and lives under a tin roof and a mud hut, and you think how fortunate am I to come home and have food.”
Despite the passage of time, Jones still painted a bleak scene.
“I saw a little progress, but honestly not much,” he said. “There’s so much damage over there it’s like where do you start? As we know, they don’t really have the infrastructure in place to really rebuild it. It’s still a bad situation.”
September 23, 2011 – 3:14 pm Categories: Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Post a comment

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