Dear Senator Pryor, here are some spending cut suggestions (“Thirsty Thursday”, Open letter to Senator Pryor)

Dear Senator Pryor, here are some spending cut suggestions (“Thirsty Thursday”, Open letter to Senator Pryor)

Senator Pryor pictured below:

Why do I keep writing and email Senator Pryor suggestions on how to cut our budget? I gave him hundreds of ideas about how to cut spending and as far as I can tell he has taken none of my suggestions. You can find some of my suggestions here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, and  here, and they all were emailed to him. In fact, I have written 13 posts pointing out reasons why I believe Senator Pryor’s re-election attempt will be unsuccessful. HERE I GO AGAIN WITH ANOTHER EMAIL I JUST SENT TO SENATOR PRYOR!!!

Dear Senator Pryor,

Why not pass the Balanced  Budget amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion).

On my blog www.thedailyhatch.org . I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. (Actually there were over 160 emails with specific spending cut suggestions.) However, I did not see any of them in the recent debt deal that Congress adopted although you did respond to me several times. Now I am trying another approach. Every week from now on I will send you an email explaining different reasons why we need the Balanced Budget Amendment. It will appear on my blog on “Thirsty Thursday” because the government is always thirsty for more money to spend. Today I actually have included a great article below from the Heritage Foundation concerning an area of our federal budget that needs to be cut down to size. The funny thing about the Sequester and the 2.4% of cuts in future increases is that President Obama set these up and then he acted like the sky was falling in as the cartoons indicate in the newspapers.

IF YOU TRULY WANT TO CUT THE BUDGET AND BALANCE THE BUDGET THEN SUBMIT THESE POTENTIAL BUDGET CUTS PRESENTED BELOW!!

___________

The Founding Fathers did not want the federal government to grab power from local governments!!!!

July 22, 2013 at 10:05 am

Chris Kleponis/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom

Chris Kleponis/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom

The House of Representatives Appropriations Committee marked up the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 2014 last week. While the bill still allocates too much funding for activities that are duplicative or inappropriate for the federal government to undertake, the committee did get something right: It eliminated funding for the failed Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).

Created in the middle of President Bill Clinton’s first term, COPS promised to add 100,000 new state and local law enforcement officers on the streets by 2000. Research by The Heritage Foundation has demonstrated that COPS not only failed to add 100,000 additional officers to America’s streets but was ineffective at reducing crime.

State and local officials, not the federal government, are responsible for funding the staffing levels of police departments. By paying for the salaries of police officers, COPS funds the routine, day-to-day functions of police and fire departments. In Federalist No. 45, James Madison wrote:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

When Congress subsidizes local police departments in this manner, it effectively reassigns to the federal government the powers and responsibilities that fall squarely within the expertise, historical control, and constitutional authority of state and local governments. The responsibility to combat ordinary crime at the local level belongs wholly and exclusively to state and local governments.

The COPS program has an extensive track record of poor performance and should be eliminated. These grants also unnecessarily perform functions that are the responsibility of state and local governments. For this particular program, the House Appropriations Committee made a fiscally wise decision that follows the wisdom of our founders and core principles of our government. When the bill is considered by the entire House, hopefully the majority of Representatives will exercise the same fiscal discipline.

Posted in Entitlements, Taxes & Spending [slideshow_deploy]
_______________The Balanced Budget Amendment is the only thing I can think of that would force Washington to cut spending. We have only a handful of balanced budgets in the last 60 years, so obviously what we are doing is not working. We are passing along this debt to the next generation. YOUR APPROACH HAS BEEN TO REJECT THE BALANCED BUDGET “BECAUSE WE SHOULD CUT THE BUDGET OURSELF,” WELL THEN HERE IS YOUR CHANCE!!!! SUBMIT THESE CUTS!!!!

Thank you for this opportunity to share my ideas with you.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com www.thedailyhatch.org, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

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Why can’t we cut the Food Stamp budget?

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Why not cancel the foodstamp program and let the churches step in?

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Food Stamp Program is constantly ripped off and should be discontinued

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Where does Mark Pryor stand on gun control?

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Spending cut suggestions sent to Senator Mark Pryor electronically every Monday and displayed here on the www.thedailyhatch.org

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: I have faithfully sent spending cut suggestions to Senator Mark Pryor every Monday for almost a year now and at the same time I have posted all of them on http://www.thedailyhatch.org every monday after they […]

 

Open letter to President Obama (Part 568) Margaret Thatcher was an amazing leader

Open letter to President Obama (Part 568)

(Emailed to White House on 6-10-13.)

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

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher were two of my heroes and I know that you can learn a great deal from their lives and their economic philosophies. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were both were influenced by Milton Friedman. I suggest checking out these episodes of Milton Friedman’s film series FREE TO CHOOSE: “The Failure of Socialism” and “What is wrong with our schools?”  and “Created Equal”  and  From Cradle to Grave, and – Power of the Market.

______________________

Margaret Thatcher was right about socialism when she said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” That is exactly what we are seeing in Europe now and it will happen to the USA too if we don’t cut back on excessive government spending.

April 8, 2013 12:32PM

Thatcher: Anecdotes From a Biographer

Her greatness as a political leader aside, and her penetrating moral critique of socialism and communism (so closely intertwined with that greatness) also aside, Margaret Thatcher was almost infinitely quotable.  On the economic folly she fought so tenaciously: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”  On popularity: “If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.” On productiveness and the charitable instinct: “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.” On the hostile press: “If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.” And many others, some of the best collected at the U.K. Spectator.

If you have time to read only one longer Thatcher article today, you could do worse than this terrific, anecdote-filled 2011 Vanity Fair piece by her biographer Charles Moore. Like so many others, Moore is fascinated by Thatcher’s force of personality, which so often drew adjectives like “steely” and “indomitable.” Thatcher, like Ronald Reagan, was entirely willing to reinvent herself on a personal level more than once, in the “self-made” manner that is often seen as particularly American. Thus as she approached the world stage, she studied how to dress and speak the part, taking lessons (at the suggestion of Sir Laurence Olivier) from the speech coach at the National Theater.

Pro-intellectual, Thatcher was one of the first to spot the potential of think tanks:

Her greatest political mentor, Sir Keith Joseph, was almost perfect in her eyes, being intellectual, good-looking, Jewish, and upper-class [four categories she approved of]. … He diagnosed — and blamed himself for — a British postwar disease of socialism, state intervention, debauched currency, weakened incentives, and overly powerful trade unions. The Tories, he declared, had been complicit in all of this… They must devise a new strategy, he said, and he set up a think tank, called the Centre for Policy Studies, to do so. Margaret Thatcher became its vice chairman and his disciple.

Thatcher made many mistakes, but often learned from them and eventually revised her views, as when she concluded that she had been too enthusiastic about the project of European integration: “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.”

“I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end,” Thatcher memorably remarked. And mostly she did, to the benefit of Britain and the world.

 

_________________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

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

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Antony Flew, Thomas B. Warren,Wallace Matson, Richard Dawkins, William B. Provine, Francis Beckwith, and William Lane Craig on the Moral Argument for the Existence of God!

Making Sense of Faith and Science

Uploaded on May 16, 2008

Dr. H. Fritz Schaefer confronts the assertion that one cannot believe in God and be a credible scientist. He explains that the theistic world view of Bacon, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Faraday and Maxwell was instrumental in the rise of modern science itself. Presented as part of the Let There be Light series. Series: Let There Be Light [5/2003] [Humanities] [Show ID: 7338]

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Antony Flew – World’s Most Famous Atheist Accepts Existence of God

Uploaded on Nov 28, 2008

Has Science Discovered God?

A half-century ago, in 1955, Professor Antony Flew set the agenda for modern atheism with his Theology and Falsification, a paper presented in a debate with C.S. Lewis. This work became the most widely reprinted philosophical publication of the last 50 years. Over the decades, he published more than 30 books attacking belief in God and debated a wide range of religious believers.

Then, in a 2004 Summit at New York University, Professor Flew announced that the discoveries of modern science have led him to the conclusion that the universe is indeed the creation of infinite Intelligence.

For More Info Visit:
http://ScienceFindsGod.com

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Intelligent Design: Is It Viable? William Lane Craig vs. Francisco J. Ayala

Published on Nov 10, 2013

Date: November 5, 2009
Location: Indiana University

Christian/Intelligent Design proponent debater: William Lane Craig
Christian/Darwinist debater: Francisco J. Ayala

For William Lane Craig: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/
For Francisco Ayala: http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cf…
To purchase this debate: http://apps.biola.edu/apologetics-sto…

__________________

_____________

I found this fine article  by Eric Lyons of Apologetics Press written in 2008 I believe.

The Moral Argument for the Existence of God

In November 2006, several of the world’s leading atheistic evolutionary scientists gathered in La Jolla, California for the first “Beyond Belief” symposium (see Lyons and Butt, 2007), which the scientific journal New Scientist called “an ‘atheist love fest’” (Reilly, 2007, 196[2629]:7). The conference was held to discuss science, religion, and God, and specifically whether science should “do away with religion” (Brooks, 2006, 192[2578]:9). New Scientist writer Michael Brooks summarized the overall attitude of the attendees in the following words: “science can take on religion and win” (p. 11). The participants were ready to roll up their sleeves and “get on with it” (p. 11). They were ready to put science “In Place of God,” as Brooks titled his article.

Fast-forward one year to 2007—to the “Beyond Belief II” symposium—where some of the participants apparently approached the idea of a Supernatural Being much more cautiously. Even New Scientist, who covered the conference for a second year in a row, chose a drastically different article title the second time around—from “In Place of God” to the more sober, “God’s Place in a Rational World” (see Reilly, 196[2629]:7, emp. added). Author Michael Reilly gave some insight into the meeting by recording what one attendee, Edward Slingerland of the University of British Columbia (and founder of the Centre for the Study of Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture), openly acknowledged.

“Religion is not going away,” he announced. Even those of us who fancy ourselves rationalists and scientists, he said, rely on moral values—a set of distinctly unscientific beliefs.

Where, for instance, does our conviction that human rights are universal come from? “Humans’ rights to me are as mysterious as the holy trinity…. You can’t do a CT scan to show where humans’ rights are, you can’t cut someone open and show us their human rights…. It’s not an empirical thing, it’s just something we strongly believe. It’s a purely metaphysical entity” (p. 7, emp. added).

Although some at the conference had the naïve belief that “[g]iven time and persistence, science will conquer all of nature’s mysteries” (Reilly, p. 7, emp. added), it is encouraging to know that at least one person alluded to one of the greatest proofs for God’s existence—the moral argument.

OBJECTIVE MORALITY

Why do most rational people believe in objective morality? That is, why do people generally think that some actions are “right” and some actions are “wrong,” regardless of people’s subjective opinions? Why do most people believe that it is “evil” or “wicked” (1) for someone to walk into a random house, shoot everyone in it, and steal everything in sight? (2) for a man to beat and rape a kind, innocent woman? (3) for an adult to torture an innocent child simply for the fun of it? or (4) for parents to have children for the sole purpose of abusing them sexually every day of their lives? Because, as evolutionist Edward Slingerland noted, humans have metaphysical rights—rights that are “a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses” (“Metaphysical,” 2011)—and  “rely on moral values.” The fact is, most people, even many atheists, have admitted that real, objective good and evil exist.

Antony Flew

During the last half of the 20th century, Dr. Antony Flew, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading in Reading, England, was considered one of the world’s most well known atheistic philosophers. From 1955-2000, he lectured and wrote extensively on matters pertaining to atheism. Some of his works include, but in no way are limited to, God and Philosophy (1966), Evolutionary Ethics (1967), Darwinian Evolution (1984), The Presumption of Atheism (1976), and Atheistic Humanism (1993). In September 1976, Dr. Flew debated Dr. Thomas B. Warren, Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Christian Apologetics at Harding Graduate School of Religion in Memphis, Tennessee. Prior to this four-night debate on the existence of God, Warren, in agreement with the rules of the debate, asked Flew several questions in writing, including the following: “True/False. In murdering six million Jewish men, women, and children the Nazis were guilty of real (objective) moral wrong.” Flew answered “True.” He acknowledged the existence of “real (objective) moral wrong” (Warren and Flew, 1977, p. 248). [NOTE: In 2004, Flew started taking steps toward theism as he acknowledged the impossibility of a purely naturalistic explanation for life. See Miller, 2004 for more information.]

Wallace Matson

In 1978, Dr. Warren met Dr. Wallace Matson, Professor of Philosophy at the University of California in Berkeley, California, in a public debate on the existence of God in Tampa, Florida. Once again, per the agreed-upon guidelines, the disputants were allowed to ask up to 10 questions prior to their debate. Once more, Warren asked: “True/False. In murdering six million Jewish men, women, and children the Nazis were guilty of real (objective) moral wrong.” Like Flew, Matson answered “True:” “real (objective) moral wrong” exists (Warren and Matson, 1978, p. 353). Matson even acknowledged in the affirmative (i.e., “true”) that “[i]f you had been a soldier during World War II and if the Nazis (1) had captured you and (2) had given you the choice of either joining them in their efforts to exterminate the Jews or being murdered, you would have had the objective moral obligation to die rather than to join them in the murder of Jewish men, women, and children” (p. 353, underline in orig.). Do not miss the point: Matson not only said that the Nazis were guilty of objective moral wrong, he even indicated that a person would have the “objective moral obligation to die” rather than join up with the murderous Nazi regime.

As Easy as 2 + 2

Although objective morality may be outside the realm of the scientific method, every rational person can know that some things are innately good, while other things are innately evil. Antony Flew and Wallace Matson, two of the leading atheistic philosophers of the 20th century, forthrightly acknowledged the existence of objective morality. Though at times atheist Michael Ruse has seemed opposed to the idea of moral objectivity (see Ruse, 1989, p. 268), evenhe admitted in his book Darwinism Defended that “[t]he man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children, is just asmistaken as the man who says that 2 + 2 = 5” (1982, p. 275, emp. added). Indeed, one of the many reasons that “religion (i.e., God—EL) is not going away,” to use Edward Slingerland’s words, is because moral values are a metaphysical reality (cf. Romans 2:14-15). Philosophers Francis Beckwith and Gregory Koukl said it well: “Those who deny obvious moral rules—who say that murder and rape are morally benign, that cruelty is not a vice, and that cowardice is a virtue—do not merely have a different moral point of view; theyhave something wrong with them” (1998, p. 59, emp. added).

THE MORAL ARGUMENT

The moral argument for the existence of God has been stated in a variety of ways through the centuries. One way in which the basic argument has been worded is as follows (see Craig, n.d.; Craig and Tooley, 1994; Cowan, 2005, p. 166):

Premise 1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.

Premise 2: Objective moral values exist.

Conclusion: God exists.

Thomas B. Warren worded the argument in a positive, more detailed manner in his debates with atheist Antony Flew (p. 173) and Wallace Matson (p. 285).

  1. If the moral code and/or actions of any individual or society can properly be subjects of criticism (as to real moral wrong), then there must be some objective standard (some “higher law which transcends the provincial and transient”) which is other than the particular moral code and which has an obligatory character which can be recognized.
  2. The moral code and/or actions of any individual or society can properly be subjects of criticism (as to real moral wrong).
  3. Therefore, there must be some objective standard (some “higher law which transcends the provincial and transient”) which is other than the particular moral code and which has an obligatory character which can be recognized.

The “society” that Warren used as a case study in his debates was Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. In the 1930s and 40s, Nazi Germany committed state-sponsored genocide of so-called “inferior races.” Of the approximately nine million Jews who lived in Europe at the beginning of the 1930s, some six million of them were exterminated. The Nazis murdered approximately one million Jewish children, two million Jewish women, and three million Jewish men. The Nazis herded them into railway cars like cattle, shipping them to concentration camps. Sometimes the floors of the railway cars were layered with quicklime, which would burn the feet of the prisoners, including the children. The Jews were starved, gassed, and experimented on like animals. Hitler slaughtered another three million Poles, Soviets, gypsies, and people with disabilities (see “Holocaust,” 2011 for more information).

So were the Nazis guilty of “real (objective) moral wrong”? According to atheist Antony Flew, they were (Warren and Flew, p. 248). Atheist Wallace Matson agreed (Warren and Matson, p. 353). Whether theist or atheist, most rational people admit that some things really are atrocious. People do not merely feel like rape and child abuse may be wrong; they are wrong—innately wrong. Just as two plus two can really be known to be four, every rational human can know that some things are objectively good, while other things are objectively evil. However, reason demands that objective good and evil can only exist if there is some real, objective point of reference. If something (e.g., rape) “can properly be the subject of criticism (as to real moral wrong) then there must be some objective standard (some ‘higher law which transcends the provincial and transient’) which is other than the particular moral code and which has an obligatory character which can be recognized” (Warren and Matson, p. 284, emp. added).

DOES ATHEISM PROVIDE A LEGITIMATE OBJECTIVE STANDARD FOR MORALITY?

Recognition by atheists of anything being morally wrong begs the question: How can an atheistlogically call something atrocious, deplorable, evil, or wicked? According to atheism, man is nothing but matter in motion. Humankind allegedly evolved from rocks and slime over billions of years. But who ever speaks of “wrong rocks,” “moral minerals,” “corrupt chemicals,” or “sinful slime?” People do not talk about morally depraved donkeys, evil elephants, or immoral monkeys. Pigs are not punished for being immoral when they eat their young. Komodo dragons are not corrupt because 10% of their diet consists of younger Komodo dragons. Killer whales are not guilty of murder. Black widows are not exterminated simply because the female often kills the male after copulation. Male animals are not tried for rape if they appear to forcibly copulate with females (cf. Thornhill, 2001). Dogs are not depraved for stealing the bone of another dog.

The fact that humans even contemplate morality testifies to the huge chasm between man and animals. Atheistic evolutionists have admitted that morals arise only in humans. According to Antony Flew, man is a moral being, yet “value did not exist before the first human being” (Warren and Flew, p. 248). Flew believed that morals came into existence only after man evolved, not beforehand when allegedly only animals existed on Earth. Though George Gaylord Simpson, one of the most recognized atheistic evolutionists of the 20th century, believed that “man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind,” he confessed that “[g]ood and evil, right and wrong, concepts irrelevant in nature except from the human viewpoint, become real and pressing features of the whole cosmos as viewed morally because morals arise only in man” (1951, p. 179, emp. added). Atheists admit that people (i.e., even “atheists”) have “their own innate sense of morality” (“Do Atheists…?, n.d.). No rational person makes such admissions about animals. As evolutionist Edward Slingerland stated, “Humans,” not animals, “rely on moral values” (as quoted in Reilly, 2007, 196[2629]:7).

Atheistic evolution cannot logically explain morals. Real, objective moral right or wrong cannot exist if humans are the offspring of animals. Young people (who are not allowed to act like animals at school) are frequently “reminded” in public school textbooks that they are the offspring of animals. According to one Earth science textbook, “Humans probably evolved from bacteria that lived more than 4 billion years ago” (Earth Science, 1989, p. 356).

When I graduated from high school in 1994, millions of public high school students in America were introduced to a new biology textbook by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. What sort of amazing things did they learn? For one, they were informed, “You are an animal and share a common heritage with earthworms” (Johnson, 1994, p. 453, emp. added). Allegedly, man not only descended from fish and four-footed beasts, we are beasts. Charles Darwin declared in chapter two of his book The Descent of Man: “My object in this chapter is solely to show that there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties” (1871, 1:34). More recently, evolutionary environmentalist David Suzuki was interviewed by Jo Marchant of New Scientist magazine. Suzuki proclaimed: “[W]e must acknowledge that we are animals…. We like to think of ourselves as elevated above other creatures. But the human body evolved” from animals (as quoted in Marchant, 2008, 200[2678]:44, emp. added). One has to look no further than Marchant’s title to know his view of humanity. Allegedly, “We Should Act Like the Animals We Are” (p. 44, emp. added). The fact is, as Thomas B. Warren concluded in his debate with Antony Flew, “[T]he basic implication of the atheistic system does not allow objective moral right or objective moral wrong” (1977, p. 49).

ATHEISM: CONTRADICTORY AT BEST, HIDEOUS AT WORST

Atheists cannot logically condemn the Nazis for objective moral evil, while simultaneously saying that we arose from rocks and rodents. They cannot reasonably rebuke a child molester for being immoral, while at the same time believing that we evolved from slime. Reason demands that objective good and evil can only exist if there is some real, objective reference point. As Warren stated: “[T]here must be some objective standard (some “higher law which transcends the provincial and transient”) which is other than the particular moral code and which has an obligatory character which can be recognized” (Warren and Matson, p. 284).

Atheists find themselves in a conundrum: (1) They must admit to objective morality (which ultimately means that a moral lawgiver, i.e., God, Who is above and beyond the provincial and the transient, exists); or, (2) They must contend that everything is relative—that no action on Earth could ever be objectively good or evil. Rather, everything is subjective and situational.

Relatively few atheists seem to have had the courage (or audacity) to say forthrightly that atheism implies that objective good and evil do not exist. However, a few have. Some of the leading atheists and agnostics in the world, in fact, understand that if there is no God, then there can be no ultimate, binding standard of morality for humanity. Charles Darwin understood perfectly the moral implications of atheism, which is one reason he gave for being “content to remain an Agnostic” (1958, p. 94). In his autobiography, he wrote: “A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones” (1958, p. 94, emp. added). If a person has the urge to suffocate innocent children, like a snake may suffocate its victims (including people), then, if there is no God, there is no objective moral law against suffocating children. If a person impulsively drowns a kind elderly person, similar to a crocodile drowning its prey, then, if atheism is true, this action could neither be regarded as objectively good or evil.

According to Richard Dawkins, one of the early 21st century’s most famous atheists, “[L]ife has no higher purpose than to perpetuate the survival of DNA” (1995, 273[5]:80):

So long as DNA is passed on, it does not matter who or what gets hurt in the process. Genes don’t care about suffering, because they don’t care about anything…. DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music…. This universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference (p. 85, emp. added).

Although Dawkins could never prove that life’s sole purpose is to perpetuate DNA, he is right about one thing: if there is no God, then there is no good and no evil, only “pitiless indifference.” “It does not matter” to atheistic evolution “who or what gets hurt.”

Like Darwin and Dawkins, atheistic evolutionary biologist William Provine implicitly acknowledged the truthfulness of the first premise of the moral argument as stated by philosophers Craig and Cowan (“If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist”). In 1988, Provine penned an article for The Scientist titled, “Scientists, Face It! Science and Religion are Incompatible” (2[16]:10). Although true science and Christianity live in perfect harmony with each other, Provine, in so far as he was referring to evolutionary science and its implications, was exactly right: evolutionary science and religion are incompatible. According to Provine,

No purposive principles exist in nature. Organic evolution has occurred by various combinations of random genetic drift, natural selection, Mendelian heredity, and many other purposeless mechanisms. Humans are complex organic machines that die completely with no survival of soul or psyche. Humans and other animals make choices frequently, but these are determined by the interaction of heredity and environment and are not the result of free will. No inherent moral or ethical laws exist, nor are there absolute guiding principles for human society. The universe cares nothing for us and we have no ultimate meaning in life (1988, p. 10, emp. added).

Provine went on in the article to accuse evolutionists who fail to take their theory to its logical conclusion of suffering from the “trying to have one’s cake and eat it, too” syndrome. He supposed that they may be acting out of fear or wishful thinking or may just be intellectually dishonest. Why? Because they do not boldly admit what he does: atheistic evolution is true. Therefore, “No inherent moral or ethical laws exist.”

Atheistic philosopher Jean Paul Sartre summarized atheism well in a lecture he gave in 1946 titled “Existentialism is a Humanism.” Sartre stated, “Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist…. [H]e cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself ” (1989, emp. added). “If God does not exist,” Sartre recognized that we have no “values or commands that could legitimise our behaviour. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse” (1989).

Though few they may be, atheists such as Provine, Sartre, and others refuse to walk down the road of contradiction. That is, rather than deny the premise: “If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist,” they acknowledge it: “[e]verything is indeed permitted if God does not exist” (Sartre, 1989). Yet, if atheists refuse to admit that real moral objectivity exists, then they are forced to admit that, for example, when the Jews were starved, gassed, and experimented on “like the animals” they reportedly were (cf. Marchant, 2008), the Nazis did nothing inherently wrong. They were, to borrow from Provine, merely complex organic, meaningless mechanisms that chose to follow the orders of the Fuhrer. Or, to apply Dawkins reasoning, how could Hitler be guilty of wrong doing if he was simply trying to perpetuate the survival of the “best” DNA possible? “[I]t does not matter who or what gets hurt in the process,” right? “So long as DNA is passed on” (Dawkins, 273[5]:85). Should we not just react with  “pitiless indifference” since atheism implies that objective good and evil do not exist (p. 85)?

What about most of humanity’s condemnation of rape as an objective moral evil? Is it really an inherently evil act? Although evolutionist Randy Thornhill, co-author of the book A Natural History of Rape, “would like to see rape eradicated from human life” (Thornhill and Palmer, 2000, p. xi), he touted in a 2001 speech he delivered in Vancouver that rape is actually “evolutionary, biological and natural…. Our male ancestors became ancestors in part because they conditionally used rape” (2001). According to Thornhill and Palmer, “Evolutionary theory applies to rape, as it does to other areas of human affairs, on both logical and evidentiary grounds. There is no legitimate scientific reason not to apply evolutionary or ultimate hypotheses to rape…. Human rape arises from men’s evolved machinery for obtaining a high number of mates in an environment where females choose mates” (2000, pp. 55,190). If God does not exist, and if man evolved from lower life forms, in part because they “conditionally used rape,” then even rape cannot be called an objective moral evil. In fact, that is exactly what atheist Dan Barker admitted.

In his 2005 debate with Peter Payne on Does Ethics Require God?, Barker stated: “All actions are situational. There is not an action that is right or wrong. I can think of an exception in any case” (emp. added). Four years later, Kyle Butt asked Barker in their debate on the existence of God, “When would rape be acceptable?” (2009, p. 33). Although Barker tried to make his response as palatable as possible, he ultimately admitted that rape would be permissible if, for example, it meant saving humanity from certain destruction (pp. 33-34). [NOTE: One wonders how Barker can logically say that no actions are right or wrong, but then claim that situation ethics is right? Such a claim is a self-defeating statement. “Nothing is right. But situation ethics is right!?” Furthermore, on what basis does Barker think it is “right” to save humanity? His entire answer ultimately contradicts his already contradictory contentions.] Barker went on to admit (and even disturbingly joke) that it would be acceptable to rape two, two thousand, or even two million women, if, say, it resulted in saving six billion people from hypothetical alien invaders (p. 34). [NOTE: Alien invaders are not really all that imaginary in the world of atheism. After all, since life supposedly evolved on Earth, according to atheistic evolutionists it had to have also evolved in one form or another on some other distant planets in the Universe.] Do not miss the point. Dan Barker admitted that rape would be acceptable given certain circumstances. One obvious question is: who gets to decide the circumstances that warrant the rape of innocent women? Who is Barker to say that a man would be wrong to rape a woman for revenge, say, because she crashed into his new car? Or, who is Barker to say that it would be wrong to rape a woman for stealing $1,000 from him, etc. The fact is, once Barker (or any atheist) alleges that (1) God does not exist, and (2) therefore, “[n]o inherent moral or ethical laws exist” (Provine, 1988, 2[16]:10; a logical deduction if God does not exist), then no one can logically be criticized for anything. As Sartre put it: “Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist” (1989). Rape, child abuse, multiple murder, pedophilia, bestiality, etc. cannot be condemned as objective evil, if God does not exist.

What happens when atheistic evolutionists take their godless philosophy to its logical conclusion, at least theoretically? They unveil the true, hideous nature of atheism. Consider, for example, the comments evolutionary ecologist Eric Pianka made in 2006 in Beaumont, Texas where he was recognized as the Distinguished Texas Scientist of the Year. According to Forrest M. Mimms, III, Chairman of the Environmental Science Section of the Texas Academy of Science, Pianka condemned “the idea that humankind occupies a privileged position in the Universe” and “hammered his point home by exclaiming, ‘We’re no better than bacteria!’” (Mims, 2006). Pianka followed up this comment by expressing his concerns “about how human overpopulation is ruining the Earth” (Mims). According to Mims,

Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive without drastic measures. Then, and without presenting any data to justify this number, he asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the present number…. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world’s population is airborne Ebola (Ebola Reston), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years (2006; for more information, see Butt, 2008, 28[7]:51-52).

Although most people (a good 90% anyway) find Pianka’s suggestion appalling, if atheism is true, and humanity really “evolved from bacteria” (Earth Science, 1989, p. 356), there would be nothing inherently wrong for a man to attempt to murder billions of people, especially if he is doing it for a “good” reason (i.e., to save the only planet in the Universe on which we know for sure life exists). [NOTE: Again, such a  reason that is deemed “good” can only exist if God does.]

CONCLUSION

The moral argument for God’s existence exposes atheism as the self-contradictory, atrocious philosophy that it is. Atheists must either reject the truthfulness of the moral argument’s first premise (“If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist”) and illogically accept the indefensible idea that objective morality somehow arose from rocks and reptiles, or (2) they must reject the argument’s second premise (“Objective moral values exist”), and accept the insane, utterly repulsive idea that genocide, rape, murder, theft, child abuse, etc. can never once be condemned as objectively “wrong.” According to atheism, individuals who commit such actions are merely doing what their DNA led them to do. They are simply following through with their raw impulses and instincts, which allegedly evolved from our animal ancestors. What’s more, if atheism is true, individuals could never logically be punished for such immoral actions, since “no inherent moral or ethical laws exist” (Provine, 1988, p. 10).

For those who refuse to have God in their knowledge (Romans 1:28), life will forever be filled with the self-contradictory, unreasonable, inhumane lies of atheistic evolution. Indeed, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1a). When atheists actually follow through with their godless philosophy and let it complete its journey of indifference, they peel back the phony charming façade of atheism and reveal it for what the psalmist said that it actually is: corrupt and abominable, where no one does good (Psalm 14:1b). On the other hand, when theists follow the evidence to the Creator (cf. Psalm 19:1-4), they discover a benevolent God Who is good (Psalm 100:5; Mark 10:18) and Who demands that His obedient followers “do good to all” (Galatians 6:10).

REFERENCES

Barker, Dan and Peter Payne (2005), Does Ethics Require God?, http://www.ffrf.org/about/bybarker/ethics_debate.php.

Beckwith, Francis and Gregory Koukl (1998), Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), http://books.google.com/books?id=JulBONF0BKMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false).

Brooks, Michael (2006), “In Place of God,” New Scientist, 192[2578]:8-11, November 18.

Butt, Kyle (2008), “The Bitter Fruit of Atheism—Part 1,” Reason & Revelation, 28[7]:49-55, July, http://www.apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=603.

Butt, Kyle and Dan Barker (2009), Butt/Barker Debate: Does the God of the Bible Exist? (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Cowan, Steven (2005), “The Question of Moral Values,” The Big Argument: Does God Exist?, eds. John Ashton and Michael Westcott (Green Forest, AR: Master Books).

Craig, William Lane (no date), “Moral Argument,” Reasonable Faith, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/documents/podcast_docs/defenders_2/Existence_of_God_Moral-Argument.pdf.

Craig, William Lane and Michael Tooley (1994), “Dr. Craig’s Opening Statement,” A Classic Debate on the Existence of God, http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/craig-tooley1.html.

Darwin, Charles (1871), The Descent of Man: Volume 1 (New York: Appleton), http://books.google.com /books?id=ZvsHAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA126&dq=The+Descent+of+Man+volume+1&hl=en&ei=vzwwTtjoDurc0QH7 mNWFAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Darwin, Charles (1958), The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, ed. Nora Barlow (New York: W.W. Norton).

Dawkins, Richard (1995), “God’s Utility Function,” Scientific American, 273[5]:80-85, November.

“Do Atheists Have Morals?” (no date), http://www.askanatheist.org/morals.html.

Earth Science (1989), (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & Jovanovich).

“Holocaust” (2011), Encyclopedia.com, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Holocaust.aspx#1.

Johnson, George B. (1994), Biology: Visualizing Life (New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston).

Lyons, Eric and Kyle Butt (2007), “Militant Atheism,” Reason & Revelation, 27[1]:1-5, January, http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/3195, http://www.apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=585.

Marchant, Jo (2008), “We Should Act Like the Animals We Are,” New Scientist, 200[2678]:44-45, October 18-24.

“Metaphysical” (2011), Merriam-Webster, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metaphysical.

Miller, Dave (2004), “Atheist Finally ‘Sobers Up,’” Apologetics Press, http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=1467.

Mims, Forrest (2006), “Meeting Doctor Doom,” The Ecologic Powerhouse, http://www.freedom.org/board/articles/mims-506.html.

Provine, William (1988), “Scientists, Face It! Science and Religion are Incompatible,” The Scientist, 2[16]:10, September 5, http://classic.the-scientist.com/article/display/8667/.

Reilly, Michael (2007), “God’s Place in a Rational World,” New Scientist, 196[2629]:7, November 10.

Ruse, Michael (1982), Darwinism Defended: A Guide to the Evolution Controversies (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley).

Ruse, Michael (1989), The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge), http://books.google.com/books?id= 4iAhPbYwHOUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+darwinian+paradigm&hl=en&ei=3dgtTomSOofagAeiqLH7Cg& sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Sartre, Jean-Paul (1989), “Existentialism is Humanism,” in Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre, ed. Walter Kaufman, trans. Philip Mairet (Meridian Publishing Company), http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm.

Simpson, George Gaylord (1951), The Meaning of Evolution (New York: Mentor).

Thornhill, Randy (2001), “A Natural History of Rape,” Lecture delivered at Simon Fraser University, http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamlin/3925/Readings/Thornhill_on_rape.pdf.

Thornhill, Randy and Craig T. Palmer (2000), A Natural History of Rape (Cambridge: MIT Press).

Warren, Thomas and Antony G.N. Flew (1977), The Warren-Flew Debate on the Existence of God (Ramer, TN: National Christian Press), info@nationalchristianpress.net.

Warren, Thomas B. and Wallace I. Matson (1978), The Warren-Matson Debate (Ramer, TN: National Christian Press), info@nationalchristianpress.net.

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WOODY WEDNESDAY Review of Woody Allen’s latest movie “Blue Jasmine” Part 18

 

I have spent alot of time talking about Woody Allen films on this blog and looking at his worldview. He has a hopeless, meaningless, nihilistic worldview that believes we are going to turn to dust and there is no afterlife. Even though he has this view he has taken the opportunity to look at the weaknesses of his own secular view. I salute him for doing that. That is why I have returned to his work over and over and presented my own Christian worldview as an alternative.

My interest in Woody Allen is so great that I have a “Woody Wednesday” on my blog www.thedailyhatch.org every week. Also I have done over 30 posts on the historical characters mentioned in his film “Midnight in Paris.” (Salvador Dali, Ernest Hemingway,T.S.Elliot,  Cole Porter,Paul Gauguin,  Luis Bunuel, and Pablo Picasso were just a few of the characters.)

Today we are looking at a review of Woody Allen’s latest movie Blue Jasmine.

Blue Jasmin Movie Review

Published on Jul 26, 2013

Blue Jasmine (2013) movie review. Starring Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin and Sally Hawkins. Directed by Woody Allen. A woman reconnects with her sister after a mid-life crisis.

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‘Blue Jasmine’: Woody Allen on regrets – He’s had a few

Ahead of the release of his new movie, ‘Blue Jasmine,’ Woody Allen ponders choices made and their consequences, in his characters’ lives and his own.

Woody Allen on regret: Yes, he's had a few

“I never trust people who say, ‘I have no regrets. If I lived my life again, I’d do it exactly the same way,’ said filmmaker Woody Allen, 77. “I wouldn’t.” (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

NEW YORK — Does Woody Allen have regrets?

His new film, “Blue Jasmine,” amplifies the air of concentrated self-examination that has long been a hallmark of his work. Though marked by buoyant moments of wry humor, the film is devastating in its intense survey of a life in the free fall of mental and emotional collapse. Cate Blanchett gives a tour-de-force performance as a wealthy New Yorker who discovers that her husband has built their fortune through fraud. After losing everything, she winds up with her decidedly more downscale sister in San Francisco, left to sift through the remains of her life.

Opening July 26, “Blue Jasmine” finds Allen further exploring a thematic conceit that has been percolating through his recent movies since at least the dual stories of 2005’s “Melinda and Melinda,” as in film after film he has been pondering a series of existential what-ifs.

PHOTOS: The many movies of Woody Allen

In 2010’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” Josh Brolin played an unhappily married man who became obsessed with what his life would be like with a woman in the apartment across the way. In the 2011 smash hit “Midnight In Paris” — for which Allen won the Oscar for original screenplay, his fourth — Owen Wilson stepped from modern day into the Jazz Age, imagining it as better than his own time. In “To Rome With Love,” Alec Baldwin played a man who seems to meet a younger version of himself in Jesse Eisenberg.

Whether in a comedic or dramatic mode, these films are all structured around a reflective, ruminative mood, as if Allen has been looking back on his celebrated, knotty life and examining the forks in the road.

“I would say, I’ve lived 77 years now, and there have been things in my life that I regret that if I could do over, I would do different,” Allen said in a recent interview that found him in a warm mood on a cold, late-spring afternoon. “Many things that I think with the perspective of having done them and having time that I would do differently. Maybe even choice of profession. Many things.

“But I think if you ask anybody that’s honest about it, there has to be a number of choices they’ve made in their life that they wished they’d made the other choice. They wished they had bought the house or didn’t buy the house, or didn’t marry the girl or did. So I have plenty of regrets. And I never trust people who say, ‘I have no regrets. If I lived my life again, I’d do it exactly the same way.’ I wouldn’t.”

–

Allen has worked for nearly 40 years in a modest suite of rooms on the ground floor of the type of politely upscale Upper East Side apartment building many know only from Woody Allen movies.

PHOTOS: Hollywood backlot moments

Off a bustling thoroughfare, past two doormen and down a tastefully appointed hallway, one finds a nondescript door with a small, unremarkable sign. Through that door is a rather cramped anteroom filled with cardboard boxes and a second, slightly shabbier door. Through there is a cluttered workroom with doors leading off in various directions. Somewhere behind there is Woody Allen. He is looking for a cough drop.

It is in this former bridge club that Allen casts his films and edits them, seeing to the unglamorous workaday details of moviemaking. He recalled when he once visited the offices of Martin Scorsese, just a few blocks away, “You would have thought that it was the law firm of Scorsese and John Foster Dulles” by comparison with his own “sleazy little operation.” He is quick to add, “I really don’t need anything more.”

Allen has maintained a startling work rate, making in essence one film a year for going on 35 years. At times it can be frustrating to keep up with his output, and there can be something haphazard about his prolificacy. This may be why “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” struggles to make $3 million in the U.S. one year and “Midnight in Paris” brings in nearly $57 million the next.

Allen’s relentless pace, his craftsman’s regularity rob his films of the event feeling a new work by a Scorsese or Spielberg are often met with, as if he is purposefully trying to lower expectations. Films that seem undercooked on first glance gain resonance over time, while other films lose their initial impact. Though never to be counted out entirely, Allen makes it easy to overlook any single film for the ongoing rush. In a way, it can be as if he doesn’t entirely get them all either.

“I don’t know why they like one and not another,” he said of the surprise audience response to “Midnight” compared with his other recent films. “If I could figure it out, I might be able to get rich.”

“Blue Jasmine” is, by Allen’s own speculation, less likely to find such a broad audience due to its serious, dramatic nature. The film’s structure finds Blanchett’s character reflecting upon moments from her past, looking for clues to her own downfall, creating a deep emotional resonance. She gives in some sense two performances, one as the fine society lady and the other as someone at moments akin to a babbling street crazy in a Chanel jacket.

PHOTOS: Celebrities by The Times

The film also has Allen’s typical deep bench of supporting performers, with strong turns by Baldwin, Sally Hawkins, Peter Sarsgaard, Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K. and Andrew Dice Clay. No character is quite as they first seem, some revealing themselves to be deeper and more emotionally sensitive while others turn out shallow and self-serving.

The in-built joke of casting the rough-hewn Clay in a heady Woody Allen film, and in a pivotal, dramatic role no less, was certainly not lost on the actor. Clay recalled that when his manager first let him know Allen had reached out, his response was, “Woody Allen’s calling for me? That’s the last guy I ever thought would call for me. I thought it was like an April Fool’s joke.”

The film will likely draw comparisons to the story of Ruth Madoff, wife of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff. Though Allen downplays the connection, Blanchett did do some research into their story, as well as other society doyens deposed by the economic collapse.

“I followed that story in the paper like everyone else, but it was not an influence in any way on the movie,” Allen said of the Madoff story, while noting that he was inspired by something his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, told him of a high-society woman who had to take a job after losing her wealth.

Perhaps what drew him to the idea was an opportunity to look at the all-too-human weakness for self-delusion, the ways in which we all often have to convince ourselves of lies big and small to make it through the day and press on with our lives.

Though the two never did have a conversation regarding the big ideas of the film, Blanchett picked up a clue from an off-the-cuff comment by Allen.

On the phone from Sydney, Australia, where she has been appearing onstage in Jean Genet’s “The Maids,” Blanchett recalled, “He wouldn’t even remember saying it, but he said something along the lines of, ‘We all know the same truth, and that our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.'”

Allen prefers not to think of his work as some sort of veiled autobiography or a series of extended notes on the human condition. Perhaps belying his roots as a teenage joke-writer and early work as a nightclub comedian, he sees his goals as far more modest.

“I’m thinking of entertaining,” he says of what motivates his writing. “That I feel is my first obligation. Then, if you can also say something, make a statement or elucidate a character or create emotions in people where they’re sad or laughing, that’s all extra. But to make a social point or a psychological point without being entertaining is homework. That’s lecturing.”

PHOTOS: The many movies of Woody Allen

While his recent films have seen him traipsing across Europe, shooting in London, Barcelona, Paris and Rome – and he has just begun production on a film in the South of France – Allen saw “Blue Jasmine” as a distinctly American story. New York was an obvious location for a film touching on a financial scandal, but his choice of San Francisco as the film’s second location, home to the character of Blanchett’s sister played by Hawkins, came down to where he thought he could spend a comfortable summer.

“Her sister could have lived anyplace and it would have been fine. I couldn’t live anyplace, that was the problem,” he said.

Allen is notoriously hands-off as a director, with apocryphal stories of his meeting performers for only a few minutes during casting and then barely speaking to them during production. Yet having directed six Oscar-winning performances, he must be doing something right. As far as his leading lady, he said, “I mean, she’s Cate Blanchett, what can you do? You hire her and get out of the way.”

Though he is prone to referencing old-guard art house stalwarts such as Bergman, Fellini or Kurosawa, Blanchett compares him to filmmakers she has worked with such as David Fincher, Jim Jarmusch, Wes Anderson or Steven Soderbergh, framing him as a contemporary working filmmaker in a way his legend often precludes. Since Blanchett and Allen had never worked together, part of her preparation was to speak with other actors who had worked with him and to study the 2011 “American Masters” documentary on him.

“Frankly, I thought he thought I was awful for the bulk of the film,” Blanchett admitted, noting that for her the breakthrough came when she realized it wasn’t her, it was him.

“Once you realize that Woody is never pleased, he is never satisfied, that’s why he makes a film a year, that’s why he’s so prolific as a filmmaker,” she said. “You realize he is actually in some exquisite agony and it’s horrific for him often to hear what he’s written. It’s as much to do with himself as the actors and once you don’t take that personally, I really relished the frankness.”

–

Allen acknowledged one unintended consequence of his prolific output is that his films almost exist in some way outside of his control. Likening the process to a series of sessions of psychoanalysis, he said, unconsciously recurrent themes emerge over years of work.

With its structure that teeters between the problems of the past and the struggles of the present, “Blue Jasmine” grapples directly with the twined difficulties of looking back and moving forward, and how we can all become an unreliable narrator to ourselves.

“I think I was always reflective,” he noted, “I think that may have been a strength and a weakness. Early on, going as far back as ‘Annie Hall,’ there are all these cerebral characters talking about life, thinking about death, thinking about the meaning of life, thinking about why relationships didn’t work, always thinking and verbalizing their thoughts, always reflecting.

“I think I’m no more reflective now,” he added with a slight giggle, “at death’s door. But you do get conscious of it. But I was conscious of aging at 14.”

So if he could go back, by the way, what other profession might he have chosen?

“I might have been happier if I was a novelist,” he replied. “So instead of having to raise millions of dollars to put on these stories, the novelist sits at home; you write, if you don’t like it you throw it away. If I throw something away, I’m throwing away $100,000 every time I take a scene out. So that might have been a better thing. Or music might have been a better thing.”

He seemed to be opening up now, genuinely taking stock of his life and career and looking down roads not taken.

“If I really can go back, early, early, early in my life” — and here he clasped his hands together and pulled them back as the windup to one final curveball — “maybe a ballet dancer.”

Woody Allen — perhaps joking, perhaps not — exists, you might say, at the very intersection of the two, a playful showman amid uncompromising self-examination. As supporting evidence for either case, he added, “I was a very athletic kid.”

mark.olsen@latimes.com

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I love the movie “Midnight in Paris” by Woody Allen and I have done over 30 posts on the historical characters mentioned in the film. Take a look below:

“Midnight in Paris” one of Woody Allen’s biggest movie hits in recent years, July 18, 2011 – 6:00 am

(Part 32, Jean-Paul Sartre)July 10, 2011 – 5:53 am

 (Part 29, Pablo Picasso) July 7, 2011 – 4:33 am

(Part 28,Van Gogh) July 6, 2011 – 4:03 am

(Part 27, Man Ray) July 5, 2011 – 4:49 am

(Part 26,James Joyce) July 4, 2011 – 5:55 am

(Part 25, T.S.Elliot) July 3, 2011 – 4:46 am

(Part 24, Djuna Barnes) July 2, 2011 – 7:28 am

(Part 23,Adriana, fictional mistress of Picasso) July 1, 2011 – 12:28 am

(Part 22, Silvia Beach and the Shakespeare and Company Bookstore) June 30, 2011 – 12:58 am

(Part 21,Versailles and the French Revolution) June 29, 2011 – 5:34 am

(Part 16, Josephine Baker) June 24, 2011 – 5:18 am

(Part 15, Luis Bunuel) June 23, 2011 – 5:37 am

(Part 1 William Faulkner) June 13, 2011 – 3:19 pm

I love Woody Allen’s latest movie “Midnight in Paris”, June 12, 2011 – 11:52 pm

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By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 567) Murdered Thousands, Convicted for Three: The Kermit Gosnell Verdict

Open letter to President Obama (Part 567)

(Emailed to White House on 5-17-13.)

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

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view.

___________________

Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION

Francis Schaeffer: What Ever Happened to the Human Race? (Full-Length Documentary)


Part 1 on abortion runs from 00:00 to 39:50, Part 2 on Infanticide runs from 39:50 to 1:21:30, Part 3 on Youth Euthanasia runs from 1:21:30 to 1:45:40, Part 4 on the basis of human dignity runs from 1:45:40 to 2:24:45 and Part 5 on the basis of truth runs from 2:24:45 to 3:00:04

Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR

________________

May 14, 2013

Murdered Thousands, Convicted for Three: The Kermit Gosnell Verdict

By Drew Belsky

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/murdered_thousands_convicted_for_three_the_kermit_gosnell_verdict.html#ixzz2TMstLk1c
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on FacebookPhiladelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell was convicted yesterday on three counts of first-degree murder, not to mention a slew of other charges, including involuntary manslaughter (for the death of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar), infanticide, and abortions past Pennsylvania’s legal limit.  One prosecutor is reported to have burst into tears upon hearing the verdict.

Pro-life groups expressed gratitude at justice served.  The Susan B. Anthony list released a statement “affirm[ing] the verdict,” and StandTrue’s Brian Kemper proclaimed the decision “an important victory for every baby who has ever been killed under the guise of choice.”  Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, declared himself “ecstatic“:

For the first time, America has gotten a long hard look at the horrors that go on inside abortion clinics. We see documentation of similar shoddy practices in other abortion clinics across our country. Gosnell is not alone by any means. Now it is time for America to do some real soul searching and decide whether the abortion cartel’s unaccountable and out-of-control abuses of vulnerable women are really how we want to treat each other.

Operation Rescue, along with J.D. Mullane of PhillyBurbs.com, has exhaustively reported on the Gosnell trial from the outset — two among precious few media outlets to do so.

Lila Rose, president of Live Action, expressed caution in her acceptance of the Gosnell verdict:

Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s gruesome and inhuman crimes in Philadelphia cried out for justice, and now — for three of his born and struggling victims, at least — justice has been served.  Even as we celebrate this verdict, we honor and mourn as well those among our nation’s weakest children who did not receive “their day in court” — and we must remember that Gosnell is not an outlier within the abortion industry.  We cannot allow these “guilty” verdicts, welcome as they are, to make us complacent when it comes to the continuing abuses happening even now in abortion facilities throughout our nation.

Rose brings up an important point: in a culture dominated by the 24-hour news cycle, it will be easy for Americans to consider the abortion issue closed with the Gosnell verdict.  The pro-life movement’s challenge, as Rose says, is to keep the American people focused on how common Gosnell-like practices are in the abortion industry, and on all the unsung victims abortion effects.  That is one of the main points behind Live Action’s Inhuman investigation, currently in progress — that “Gosnell is not alone.”

Pro-abortion organizations, meanwhile, used the Gosnell verdict as best as they could to promote their sacred cow.  In a statement from NARAL Pro-Choice America, for example, president Ilyse Hogue schizophrenically condemned Pennsylvania authorities for ignoring abortion laws (“the gross negligence of authorities to enforce the law after complaints were filed against Gosnell”) in one paragraph while lobbying in another for the repeal of abortion laws (“NARAL Pro-Choice America’s annual Who Decides? publication has given Pennsylvania an ‘F’ grade precisely because it has passed medically unnecessary laws that restrict access to safe and legal abortion care.”).  A NARAL tweet in the same vein drew withering criticism, prompting NARAL to double down (to similar effect).  The organization, originally called “the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws”), might do well to recall that Gosnell operated not as a “back-alley” abortionist, but rather as a legal practitioner for decades.

Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion company in America, tweeted, “A just verdict. The jury has rightly convicted #Gosnell for his appalling crimes, ensuring no woman is victimized by him ever again.”  (Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards joined in, lukewarmly.)  Commentators came out in force, noticing the creepy evasiveness (quite common when Planned Parenthood is forced to address its grisly handiwork) with which the abortion giant ignored Gosnell’s infant victims.  As Lila Rose put it, “Why is @PPact ignoring the infant victims of Kermit #Gosnell? Horrifying that the humanity of the child is ‘bad for business.'”

Considering that Planned Parenthood, a $1.2-billion company who received $542 million in taxpayer funding in 2011, focused exclusively on the women Gosnell victimized, it might be worthwhile for Eric Ferrero, the abortion corporation’s vice president for communications, to clarify whether the organization deems Gosnell’s spine-snipping “post-birth abortions” (an Orwellian contradiction in terms) “appalling crimes.”  Unlikely, considering Planned Parenthood lobbyist Alisa LaPolt Snow’s cringe-inducing testimony in opposition to Florida’s born-alive infant protection bill.

Kermit Gosnell easily makes for the most headline-grabbing phenomenon to damn the pro-choice worldview at this time, but he is by no means the only one.  Notorious abortionist LeRoy Carhart killed a 33-week pregnant woman in February; Jennifer Morbelli died of complications from Carhart’s abortion procedure after Carhart himself refused to pick up his phone to help the ailing woman.  Planned Parenthood of Delaware was forced to close in April after two nurses quit for fear of losing their licenses; the women condemned the facility as running a “meat-market style of assembly-line abortions,” adding that “I couldn’t tell you how ridiculously unsafe it was.”  Abortion facilities continue to shut down, either because they are completely filthy or because they refuse to abide by the same rules as hospitals and other surgical centers.  Fence-sitters in the abortion debate should wonder why abortion clinics typically are less stringently regulated and get less frequently inspected (if at all) than tattoo parlors, veterinary clinics, and hair salons — and why organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL fight tooth and nail to keep this lopsided order on its head.

Former president and famed redefiner of words Bill Clinton used to bloviate that he would see abortion “safe, legal, and rare” — and his sycophants ran with the slogan.  Since then, the Democratic Party have given up on “rare,” striking it from their platform and replacing it with “regardless of ability to pay” (that is to say, forcibly funded by taxpayers).  Meanwhile, the Gosnell trial, and the extensive documentation of other Gosnells yet unpunished, proves that no number of laws can make abortion “safe” — not for the woman, and certainly not for the dismembered, scissored, and suctioned innocent child.  It might make sense, then, to finish off this insidious trifecta and do away with “legal.”

Yet our current president — a bloviator to rival Clinton — tries to invoke God’s blessing for Planned Parenthood, declaring that the abortion giant “is not going anywhere,” and gleefully tweets about free birth control on Mother’s Day.

Hopefully the horror-novel quality of the Gosnell trial and verdict will help Americans — even those who steadfastly refuse to look this evil in the face — see through the gesticulations of the most creepily pro-abortion president in our nation’s history and face facts.

Drew Belsky is American Thinker‘s deputy editor.  He is also communications director for Live Action.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/murdered_thousands_convicted_for_three_the_kermit_gosnell_verdict.html#ixzz2TMsknthh
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on FacebookPolitical Cartoons by Glenn McCoy

By Glenn McCoy – May 06, 2013

______________________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband. I also respect you for putting your faith in Christ for your eternal life. I am pleading to you on the basis of the Bible to please review your religious views concerning abortion. It was the Bible that caused the abolition movement of the 1800’s and it also was the basis for Martin Luther King’s movement for civil rights and it also is the basis for recognizing the unborn children.

Sincerely,

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

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Antony Flew’s defection from atheism was well thought out!!!!

________

Discussion (2 of 3): Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas

______________

Atheist Lawrence Krauss loses debate to wiser Christian

Published on Sep 13, 2013

http://www.reasonablefaith.org More of this here

The Bible and Science (Part 02)

The Kalam Cosmological Argument (Scientific Evidence) (Henry Schaefer, PhD)

Published on Jun 11, 2012

Scientist Dr. Henry “Fritz” Schaefer gives a lecture on the cosmological argument and shows how contemporary science backs it up.

______________

__________________

Antony Flew’s defection from atheism was well thought out!!!!

Friday, April 24, 2009

Book Review: There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (2007).

One of my property law professors once complained about legal writers who circle around a point for many prefatory revolutions before making it, like dogs encircling a resting place before laying down. Thus, he would have loved the writing in Antony Flew’s (with Roy Abraham Varghese) There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.

Surprisingly concise at 158 pages (sans appendices), There is a God gets right to the heart of the matter. It explains the philosophic basis for Flew’s changing his mind about God’s existence. At its core, Flew now finds the design argument persuasive, although he recasts it a bit.

“Perhaps the most popular and intuitively plausible argument for God’s existence is the so-called argument from design. According to this argument, the design that is apparent in nature suggests the existence of a cosmic Designer. I have often stressed that this is actually an argument to design from order, as such arguments proceed from the perceived order in nature to show evidence of design, and thus, a Designer. Although I was once sharply critical of the argument to design, I have since come to see that, when correctly formulated, this argument constitutes a persuasive case for the existence of God.” (p. 95; emphasis in original.)

Notably, Flew characterizes his arrival at this conclusion as “a pilgrimage of reason and not of faith.” (p. 93.) He stresses that his “discovery of the Divine has proceeded on a purely natural level, wihout any reference to supernatural phenomena.” (p. 93.)

In roughly the first half of There is a God, entitled “My Denial of the Divine“, Flew provides his athestic background primarly as an academic and author, and in the second half, entitled “My Discovery of the Divine”, he explains how he came to believe that God exists.

Christians, for example, should not be so quick to adopt Flew as one of their own, however. Flew stresses that he makes no claim to “any personal experience of God or any experience that may be called supernatural or miraculous.” (p. 93.) On the other hand, Flex repeats an intriguing line: “As I have said more than once, no other religion [besides Christianity] enjoys anything like the combination of a charismatic figure like Jesus and a first-class intellectual like St. Paul. If you’re wanting omnipotence to set up a religion, it seems to me that this is the one to beat!” (p. 157; see also pp. 185-86.) Flew continues: “I think that the Christian religion is the one religion that most clearly deserves to be honored and respected whether or not its claim to be a divine revelation is true.” (p. 185.)

In this vein, Flew includes an excellent appendix from New Testament scholar N.T. Wright that succinctly addresses these core questions, “How Do We Know that Jesus Existed?”; “What Grounds Are There for Claiming from the Texts, That Jesus Is God Incarnate?”; and “What Evidence Is There for the Resurrection of Christ?” (pp. 187-213.) Flew responds: “I am very impressed with Bishop Wright’s approach, which is absolutely fresh. He presents the case for Christianity as something new for the first time….It is absolutely wonderful, absolutely radical, and very powerful.” (p. 213.)

Accordingly, it’s a compelling combination to find two building blocks of the Christian religion in a single, lean volume. Flew outlines the architecture for the existence of God, and Wright sketches it for Christianity. Thus, one doesn’t have to go round-and-round with redundancies or irrelevancies–like following a dog encircling his mat–to get to the heart of these crucial inquiries.

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posted by nblaw @ 4:29 PM

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Like the blog motto, my background is an intersection of law and theology. I hold three graduate degrees. Two are in law (a J.D. and an LL.M. in Taxation), and one is in theology. In law school, I served on the Law Review, and received the American Jurisprudence Award in Trial Advocacy. Likewise, my professional background is an intersection of law and education. In addition to being a named partner in an A-V rated Newport Beach, California trial and appellate law firm, emphasizing business and real estate, I’ve taught Constitutional law, civil procedure and ethics in law school. I am also a published author. I live at the beach in Southern California, am engaged and am a fitness, book, music, film and travel enthusiast. Reach me at rjr (at) reichradcliffe (dot) com. Follow me at twitter.com/nblaw

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Mark Oppenheimer of Time Magazine claims Antony Flew was convinced by PSEUDOSCIENCE that God exists!!!

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Truth Tuesday:Francis Schaeffer on liberal theology by Peter Cockrell

Francis Schaeffer on liberal theology by Peter Cockrell

Episode 8: The Age Of Fragmentation

Published on Jul 24, 2012

Dr. Schaeffer’s sweeping epic on the rise and decline of Western thought and Culture

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I love the works of Francis Schaeffer and I have been on the internet reading several blogs that talk about Schaeffer’s work and the work below by Peter Cockrell  was really helpful. Schaeffer’s film series “How should we then live?  Wikipedia notes, “According to Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live traces Western history from Ancient Rome until the time of writing (1976) along three lines: the philosophic, scientific, and religious.[3] He also makes extensive references to art and architecture as a means of showing how these movements reflected changing patterns of thought through time. Schaeffer’s central premise is: when we base society on the Bible, on the infinite-personal God who is there and has spoken,[4] this provides an absolute by which we can conduct our lives and by which we can judge society.  Here are some posts I have done on this 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 “The Revolutionary Age” , episode 4 “The Reformation”,  episode 3 “The Renaissance”, episode 2 “The Middle Ages,”, and  episode 1 “The Roman Age,” .

In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented  against abortion (Episode 1),  infanticide (Episode 2),   euthanasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible.

Francis Schaeffer

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Francis Schaeffer on liberal theology

Francis Schaeffer“What is the liberal theology like? It can only be paralleled with what God says in Proverbs 30:20 about the adulterous woman: ‘Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.’ What a picture! Not everyone whose theology has been somewhat infiltrated by liberal theology should be likened to this, but the real liberal theologian (whether the old liberal-type theologian or the newer existential theologian) stands in this place. They say they have done no evil by their spiritual adultery, while not only the church but the whole post-Christian culture shows the results of their unfaithfulness.

“There is no adulterous woman who has ever been so soiled as the liberal theology, which has had all the gifts of God and has turned away to a worship of something that is more destructive than Molech was to the babies whose parents were led astray from the living God to worship this idol. This is not a thing to take lightly. We must show love to the man with whom we discuss. Yes, and we fight for this at L’Abri. We must fight for the fact that he is not to be treated as less than a man. Nothing is more ugly than the orthodox man treating another man as less than a man and failing to show that he takes seriously Christ’s teaching that all men are our neighbors. We do not discuss with the liberal only to win, but to help others, and to try to help him as well. But to treat lightly what liberal theology has done — not for a moment.”

– Francis A. Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the 20th Century(Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity, 1970), 126-127.

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Open letter to President Obama (Part 566) Farm Bill Would Increase Spending 47%

Open letter to President Obama (Part 566)

(Emailed to White House on 6-6-13.)

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

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

I have been writing on my blog for over two years now concerning the disturbing trend of more and more people becoming dependent on the federal government for more of their income than ever before. This encourages laziness in my view and in the case of the food stamp system many people find themselves in what Milton Friedman calls the “Welfare Trap.”  (Much of this trend started under President Bush and had Republican support.) I wanted to point out that we should cut back on government spending and let the private economy do it’s magic.

We got to cut spending and this farm bill is the perfect place to start!!!

May 29, 2013 12:33PM

Farm Bill Would Increase Spending 47%

House and Senate farm subsidy supporters are pushing to enact the first big farm bill since 2008. Democratic and Republican supporters say that this year’s legislation will be a reform bill that cuts spending. Hogwash.

Last year, House farm subsidy supporters proposed a bill that would spend $950 billion over the next 10 years, while the Senate proposed a bill that would spend $963 billion. By contrast, when the 2008 farm bill passed, it was projected to spend $640 billion over 10 years. Thus, the proposed House bill would represent a 48 percent spending increase over the last farm bill, while the Senate bill would represent a 50 percent increase.

A new estimate of the House bill finds that it would spend $940 billion over 10 years, which would be a 47 percent increase over the 2008 farm bill. This new estimate is shown in the chart alongside the estimate of the 2008 farm bill.

The CBO score of the 2008 farm bill is here. Scores for the 2012 farm bill proposals are reported in this CRS report. And the new score of the House bill is here.

Since the 2008 farm bill, we’ve had five years of moderate inflation, which has eroded the value of dollars by about 8 percent. Thus, the 2013 House farm bill would increase real spending by 39 percent compared to the 2008 farm bill.

The Republican-controlled House Agriculture Committee says that its bill “saves taxpayer’s money,” “reduces deficit spending,” and “repeals outdated government programs.” That sounds good, and the GOP bill is officially scored to “save” $33 billion over 10 years. But that savings is against the CBO baseline of $973 billion in farm bill spending over 10 years, so the House bill can be said to “cut” spending by 3 percent.

Given today’s huge federal deficits, a 3 percent “cut” by Republicans is a joke in itself. But that’s only a cut against baseline, and since baseline spending has soared in recent years it’s no cut at all.

Consider, for example, that in 2008 CBO estimated that farm bill spending in 2014 would be $67 billion. But CBO is now estimating that farm bill spending in 2014 will be $99 billion. Thus, spending in this single year is $32 billion or 48 percent higher than the politicians promised it would be back in 2008. So you can see that the proposed GOP “cut” of $33 billion over 10 years is incredibly lame.

Despite the fact that politicians are claiming that the proposed new farm bill cuts spending, it’s just a mirage created by rising baselines. The truth is that the House farm bill would spend 47 percent more over 10 years than the last farm bill, or 39 percent more in inflation-adjusted dollars.

For background, see this new study by Sallie James and this essay on the history and failures of farm subsidies. Also note that three-quarters of “farm bill” spending is for food subsidies, which you can read about here. And if you’re in D.C., come and hear about the farm bill at our Capitol Hill event at noon Thursday.

 

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Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

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

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Open letter to President Obama (Part 565) Free Trade Heroes

Open letter to President Obama (Part 565)

(Emailed to White House on 6-25-13.)

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

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

The federal government debt is growing so much that it is endangering us because if things keep going like they are now we will not have any money left for the national defense because we are so far in debt as a nation. We have been spending so much on our welfare state through food stamps and other programs that I am worrying that many of our citizens are becoming more dependent on government and in many cases they are losing their incentive to work hard because of the welfare trap the government has put in place. Other nations in Europe have gone down this road and we see what mess this has gotten them in. People really are losing their faith in big government and they want more liberty back. It seems to me we have to get back to the founding  principles that made our country great.  We also need to realize that a big government will encourage waste and corruption. The recent scandals in our government have proved my point. In fact, the jokes you made at Ohio State about possibly auditing them are not so funny now that reality shows how the IRS was acting more like a monster out of control. Also raising taxes on the job creators is a very bad idea too. The Laffer Curve clearly demonstrates that when the tax rates are raised many individuals will move their investments to places where they will not get taxed as much.

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I have written about 66 heroes of mine in the House of Representatives that voted “no” on President Obama’s debt ceiling increase request in 2011. I AM VERY PROUD OF THE FREE TRADE HEROES MENTIONED IN THE ARTICLE BELOW. Many of these same heroes voted against the proposal to raise the debt ceiling too. Lord knows I have written a lot about that in the past. . I have praised over and over and over the 66 House Republicans that voted no on that before. If they did not raise the debt ceiling then we would have a balanced budget instantly.  I agree that the Tea Party has made a difference and I have personally posted 49 posts on my blog on different Tea Party heroes of mine.

I have written and emailed Senator Pryor over, and over again with spending cut suggestions but he has ignored all of these good ideas in favor of keeping the printing presses going as we plunge our future generations further in debt. I am convinced if he does not change his liberal voting record that he will no longer be our senator in 2014.

I have written hundreds of letters and emails to President Obama and I must say that I have been impressed that he has had the White House staff answer so many of my letters. The White House answered concerning Social Security (two times), Green Technologies, welfare, small businesses, Obamacare (twice),  federal overspending, expanding unemployment benefits to 99 weeks,  gun control, national debt, abortion, jumpstarting the economy, and various other  issues.   However, his policies have not changed, and by the way the White House after answering over 50 of my letters before November of 2012 has not answered one since.   President Obama is committed to cutting nothing from the budget that I can tell.

 I have praised over and over and over the 66 House Republicans that voted no on that before. If they did not raise the debt ceiling then we would have a balanced budget instantly.  I agree that the Tea Party has made a difference and I have personally posted 49 posts on my blog on different Tea Party heroes of mine.

The problem in Washington is not lack of revenue but our lack of spending restraint. This video below makes that point.

NOW TO THE FREE TRADE HEROES!!!!!

June 4, 2013 2:58PM

Congratulations to the Free Traders of the 112th Congress

Do you remember the 112th Congress—the one that repeatedly almost shut down the government while still managing to raise taxes and spending? It turns out they did some interesting things with trade policy. The votes recorded in Cato’s congressional trade votes database have been counted, tabulated, and analyzed, and the results are mixed. The predictable legislative outcome was that with a Republican House and Democratic Senate, the 112th Congress furthered the bipartisan establishment trade policy of reciprocal tariff reduction and unilateral subsidy expansion.

The more interesting revelations come from looking at the voting records of individual members. Rather than simply noting whether a policy would promote or diminish free trade or would increase or decrease America’s engagement in the global economy, Cato’s Free Trade, Free Markets methodology distinguishes between barriers (like tariffs and quotas) and subsidies (like loan guarantees, tax credits, and price supports). This distinction enables us to place members within a two-dimensional matrix.

Free traders are those that oppose both barriers and subsidies. Interventionists are those that support both barriers and subsidies. Isolationists are those that support barriers but oppose subsidies. Internationalists are those that oppose barriers but support subsidies.

The release of this report offers a wonderful opportunity to name names. First I’d like to point out that last term, three Republican representatives voted consistently to support trade barriers. Just to be clear, these barriers are taxes expressly intended to prevent you from buying things you want. The representatives are Walter Jones of North Carolina, Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey, and Steve LaTourette of Ohio. While Walter Jones consistently opposed subsidies (making him the House’s only isolationist last term), Messrs. LoBiondo and LaTourette joined 115 Democrats as interventionists.

With that unpleasantness out of the way, I would like to offer my congratulations and gratitude to the 112th Congress’s free traders. There were 19 in the Senate and 85 in the House. The high number of free traders in the House last term is due mostly to the fact that there was only one trade subsidy vote; if there were more, I’m sure many of these names would disappear from the list, but many would not and they all deserve credit nonetheless.

Free Traders in the House of Representatives for the 112th Congress: Free Traders in the Senate for the 112th Congress:
Sandy Adams Kelly Ayotte
Todd Akin John Boozman
Justin Amash Tom Coburn
Charles Bass Bob Corker
Diane Black John Cornyn
Marsha Blackburn Jim DeMint
Paul Broun Lindsey Graham
Michael Burgess Chuck Grassley
Quico Canseco Orrin Hatch
Steve Chabot Dean Heller
Jason Chaffetz Jim Inhofe
Mike Coffman Jon Kyl
Mike Conaway Mike Lee
John Culberson John McCain
Jeff Duncan Mitch McConnell
Blake Farenthold Rand Paul
Stephen Fincher Rob Portman
Jeff Flake Jeff Sessions
Chuck Fleischmann Pat Toomey
John C. Fleming
Randy Forbes
Trent Franks
Cory Gardner
Scott Garrett
Phil Gingrey
Louie Gohmert
Paul Gosar
Tom Graves
Tim Griffin
Ralph Hall
Richard Hanna
Andy Harris
Joe Heck
Jeb Hensarling
Wally Herger
Tim Huelskamp
Bill Huizenga
Lynn Jenkins
Sam Johnson
Tim Johnson
Jim Jordan
Steve King
Jack Kingston
Raul Labrador
Doug Lamborn
Leonard Lance
Jeff Landry
James Lankford
Bob Latta
Kenny Marchant
Tom McClintock
Jeff Miller
Mick Mulvaney
Randy Neugebauer
Kristi Noem
Alan Nunnelee
Steven Palazzo
Erik Paulsen
Tom Petri
Ted Poe
Mike Pompeo
Bill Posey
Thomas Price
Ben Quayle
Todd Rokita
Thomas Rooney
Dennis Ross
Ed Royce
Paul Ryan
Steve Scalise
Jean Schmidt
David Schweikert
Austin Scott
Jim Sensenbrenner
Steve Southerland
Cliff Stearns
Marlin Stutzman
John Sullivan
Scott Tipton
Tim Walberg
Daniel Webster
Allen West
Lynn Westmoreland
Rob Woodal
Todd Young

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

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

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By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Former atheist Antony Flew said, “I was particularly impressed with Gerry Schroeder’s point-by-point refutation of what I call the MONKEY THEOREM!”

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Discussion (1 of 3): Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas

Uploaded on Sep 22, 2010

A discussion with Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas. This was held at Westminster Chapel March, 2008

Is Goodness Without God is Good Enough? William Lane Craig vs. Paul Kurtz

Published on Jul 29, 2013

Date: October 24, 2001
Location: Franklin & Marshall College

Christian debater: William Lane Craig
Atheist/secular humanist debater: Paul Kurtz

For William Lane Craig: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/
For Paul Kurtz: http://paulkurtz.net/
To purchase this debate: http://apps.biola.edu/apologetics-sto…
To purchase a published version of this debate:http://apps.biola.edu/apologetics-sto…

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The Bible and Science (Part 01)

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Making Sense of Faith and Science

Uploaded on May 16, 2008

Dr. H. Fritz Schaefer confronts the assertion that one cannot believe in God and be a credible scientist. He explains that the theistic world view of Bacon, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Faraday and Maxwell was instrumental in the rise of modern science itself. Presented as part of the Let There be Light series. Series: Let There Be Light [5/2003] [Humanities] [Show ID: 7338]

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What is the “infinite monkey theorem?” Wikipedia states:

The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.

In this context, “almost surely” is a mathematical term with a precise meaning, and the “monkey” is not an actual monkey, but a metaphor for an abstract device that produces an endless random sequence of letters and symbols. One of the earliest instances of the use of the “monkey metaphor” is that of French mathematician Émile Borel in 1913,[1] but the earliest instance may be even earlier. The relevance of the theorem is questionable—the probability of a universe full of monkeys typing a complete work such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet is so tiny that the chance of it occurring during a period of time hundreds of thousands of orders of magnitude longer than the age of the universe is extremely low (but technically not zero).

Variants of the theorem include multiple and even infinitely many typists, and the target text varies between an entire library and a single sentence. The history of these statements can be traced back to Aristotle‘s On Generation and Corruption and Cicero‘s De natura deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), through Blaise Pascal and Jonathan Swift, and finally to modern statements with their iconic simians and typewriters. In the early 20th century, Émile Borel and Arthur Eddington used the theorem to illustrate the timescales implicit in the foundations of statistical mechanics.

A chimpanzee (rather than a monkey) sitting at a typewriter. Given enough time, a hypothetical monkey (or in this case ape) typing at random would, as part of its output, almost surely produce all of Shakespeare’s plays.

__________

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins employs the typing monkey concept in his book The Blind Watchmaker to demonstrate the ability of natural selection to produce biological complexity out of random mutations.

Former atheist Antony Flew said, “I was particularly impressed with Gerry Schroeder’s point-by-point refutation of what I call the ‘monkey theorem.”

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Atheism and monkeys

Anthony Flew is a world renowned philosopher who has aggressively advocated atheism for more than 50 years. Recently he changed his mind. He says he is now convinced on the basis of reason alone that atheism is no longer a viable option. He has just published a new book entitled “There is a God; How the world’s most notorious atheist changed his mind” (He notes that the title was not his idea). In this book Flew says,

“I was particularly impressed with Gerry Schroeder’s point-by-point refutation of what I call the ‘monkey theorem.” This idea, which has been presented in a number of forms and variations, defends the possibility of life arising by chance using
the analogy of a multitude of monkeys banging away on computer keyboards and
eventually ending up writing a Shakespearean sonnet.”

Schroeder first referred to an experiment conducted by the British National Council of Arts. A computer was placed in a cage with six monkeys. After one month of hammering away at it (as well as using it as a bathroom!), the monkeys produced fifty pages—but not a single word. Schroeder noted that this was the case even though the shortest word in the English language is one letter (a or I). A is a word
only if there is a space on either side of it. If we take it that the keyboard
has thirty characters (the twenty-six letters and other symbols), then the
likelihood of getting a one-letter word is 30 times 30 times 30, which is
27,000. The likelihood of getting a one-letter word is one chance out of
27,000. (76-77)

Schroeder then calculates the probability of producing a Shakespearean sonnet. All sonnets are 14 lines long. The one he chose happened to have 488 letters in it. The chance that these monkeys would produce a sonnet like this by chance turns out to be a 1 followed by 690 zeros. If you wonder how big that is, Schroeder points out that the number of estimated particles (protons, electrons, neutrons) in the entire universe is only 1 followed by 80 zeros!.

Needless to say, the very simplest living cell is incalculably more complicated than a Shakespearean sonnet! Most of us simply don’t have enough faith to believe the universe originated without some kind of intelligent designer.

Posted by at 6:34 PM 

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About Me

I am a library director, Bible professor, and pastor with masters’ degrees in library science and theological studies, and a doctor of philosophy in religion and society. This blog contains some of my articles, essays and posts.

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