Dave Barry on the Economic Stimulus Payment:

“This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

“Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
“A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

“Q. Where will the government get this money?
“A. From taxpayers.

“Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
“A. Only a smidgen.

“Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
“A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

“Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China?
“A. Shut up.”

When ministers ignore their duty to preach the gospel, they are inevitably swayed by the latest social trends, and the relevancy of their message caters to the lowest common denominator. Consider the following inane rant from Oliver “Buzz” Thomas:

In the interest of preserving our planet and our species, shouldn’t religious organizations be encouraging smaller families? Do our spiritual leaders need additional divine revelation to realize that our current doctrines — which threaten to take the entire world down with us — have become ethically and theologically questionable?

Population growth hits hardest in the poorest nations, and as poverty increases, public health declines. I am quite certain that God is not the author of human misery, but by preaching against birth control at the same time we are preaching against abortion, it seems that we’re making God out as cruel, a buffoon, or both.

I recognize that religious organizations tend to be conservative institutions. Their continued resistance to equal rights for women and gays is a good example. A woman may be president of Harvard or speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, but in the largest religious organization on the planet, women still can’t get ordained as parish priests. It’s even worse for gays and lesbians.

All this is to say that religion often comes late to the party — sometimes kicking and screaming, as did most Southern churches on slavery and civil rights. Only this time, we can’t afford it. Not when the fate of the planet might hang in the balance.

How should people of faith respond to this gathering environmental storm?

First, we must stop having so many children. Clergy should consider voicing the difficult truth that having more than two children during such a time is selfish. Dare we say sinful? The average American might not listen to his elected representatives, but he darn sure listens to his pastor. Every week. This will be a hard message for pastors to preach and parishioners to hear, but without it we court disaster.

Contrast that sentiment with Psalm 127:3-5: “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” Christ himself said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). Sorry, Rev. Thomas, but I cannot subscribe to your implication that children are a curse. (And yes, that is exactly what you are implying.) The world needs more children brought up “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4), not less.

I attended a pro-life dinner Tuesday evening, and I am pleased to say that I only heard one thing that set alarm bells off, but the klaxon on that one item is still reverberating. The speaker was an elderly doctor who has been a pro-life champion all his life. He was a big fan of former (and recently deceased) Congressman Henry Hyde, who was himself a pro-life champion during his whole congressional career.

Anyway…the speaker closed his comments with the following quote from Henry Hyde. I was burdened that the speaker found the quote so meaningful and that the gathered group was so seemingly moved by the quote.

Here it is,

When the time comes, as it surely will, when we face that awesome moment, the final judgment, I’ve often thought, as Fulton Sheen wrote, that it is a terrible moment of loneliness. You have no advocates, you are there alone standing before God and a terror will rip through your soul like nothing you can imagine. But I really think that those in the pro-life movement will not be alone. I think there will be a chorus of voices that have never been heard in this world but are heard beautifully and clearly in the next world and they will plead for everyone who has been in this movement. They will say to God, “Spare him because he loved us,” and God will look at you and say not, “Did you succeed?” but “Did you try?”

I gave the closing prayer, shortly after the main speaker had finished with this quote. I thanked God that in Christ the eschatological judgment was already finished and that it is not lonely nor full of terror because Jesus is our advocate and pleads for us before the Father. I thanked God that we are saved because of Jesus living and dying for us and that not one whit of our effort has anything to do with making it past judgment.

I seriously doubt that anyone noticed that I was making a conscious effort to contradict the final quote.

It really does sadden me that Bishop Sheen and Henry Hyde thought, and that the speaker Tuesday night thinks, that judgment has anything to do with our trying to end abortion or our efforts on anything.

I was conflicted Tuesday night. On one hand I was ecstatic that this medical doctor had given so much of his life to the pro-life effort, and yet on the other hand I was saddened that he apparently had attached his efforts in pro-life work to the eternal destiny of his soul. I was saddened that he thought the chorus of the voices of the unborn would have a leverage with God that the voice of Jesus didn’t.

There has been a great deal of work lately in some quarters to suggest that Roman Catholicism isn’t as extreme as many Reformed types make it out to be. Tonight I heard a professional who has spent his life in the Roman Catholic Church, and it was crystal clear that Roman Catholicism is everything that the Reformers rose up against. If anybody tells you that there is no difference between Roman Catholicism and Biblical Christianity don’t you believe it.

Tonight several of the families from the Church together attended the documentary film by Ben Stein titled ‘Expelled.’ Except for our Church group the theater was almost empty. It was like having a private viewing.Considered from a purely technical basis the film was brilliant. The cut aways to old film clips to reinforce a point being made was hysterical and effective. The music background was consistently appropriate and worked to underscore the point being made when the music was cued. Further one suspects that the editing of the interviews was done in such a way to accentuate what needed to be accentuated.

I have only one beef with the movie and I will go ahead and mention it up front. My one problem is that Stein let the Evolutionist get away with contending that they were against religion and were against God when in point of fact they are really only against every religion except their own and every god except their own. This problem also surfaced when Stein spoke with the ‘Intelligent Design’ gentleman in Seattle who was insisting that ‘Intelligent Design’ didn’t have anything to do with the religion. Actually ‘Intelligent Design’ like ‘Evolution’ does have a great deal to do with religion – indeed neither could even exist if it weren’t for their respective religions. Now, I understand why the Scientist from the ‘Discovery Institute’ (the pro ‘Intelligent Design’ think tank) is put off by being associated with ‘religion’ by his enemies the ‘Evolutionists,’ since being associated with religion is like being associated with the plague in our culture. But the answer for the ‘Intelligent Design’ school (a school I do not support) is not to protest that they have nothing to do with religion but rather to admit that they, like their evolutionary counterparts, have the science they have due to the consequence of their religious presuppositions. On this point we must remember the maxim of Dr. Greg Bahnsen who stated that the ‘Unbeliever is a believer,’ and that their religious belief incarnates itself into every area of life, including science.

Now, to be fair this point was hinted at in the film when Stein interviewed the jovial Mathematician who clearly made the point that the Worldview isn’t created by the Science but rather that Science is derivative of the Worldview. I got a charge out of that comment since it was made with almost impish delight and since it was said as if it was a novel or daring thought. It was hardly novel or daring since that point has been made at least since the 1960s when Thomas Kuhn wrote ‘Structures of Scientific Revolutions.’

Indeed, in my estimation, the whole documentary was a vindication of Kuhn’s book on this score. One comment especially underscored that idea when one of the scientists noted that the Evolutionary Worldview can’t account for an increasing number of anomalies that are erupting in contradiction to the Darwinist paradigm. One of Kuhn’s central points is that paradigm change happens when an old paradigm can’t account for repeated occurring exceptions which violate the rules governing the prevailing paradigm.

I was amazed in the film by the female curator at Hadamar. This was the museum in Germany that Stein visited where 50,000 of infirm, inept, and handicapped Germans were hospitalized, experimented on and eventually euthanized, dissected, and cremated. The curator refused to characterize the head physician at Hadamar as insane and even went so far as to say that ’she didn’t think it was her place to offer an opinion of the chief physician’s work.’ Keeping that clip in the movie served to subtly remind people that Evolutionary thinking, with its inability to provide a transcendent standard, continues to turn people into moral zombies. Stein’s time at Hadamar also raised awareness of the whole eugenics movement pursued not only by Germany, but also by America. This movement in America taking place in the 1920s was pursued by Evolutionists and has been conveniently been dropped down the memory hole of US History (Google Buck vs. Bell).

Naturally, one had to love Stein’s subtle mockery of the scientific ‘answers,’ from ‘the great scientific minds.’ From Stein’s recurrent Bud Abbott, straight-man type questioning, on the offered explanation that the beginning of life was due to life-bearing crystals, to his pressing of Dawkins for an exact percentage of likelihood of God’s non existence (”Could it be 97% as opposed to 99%? Could it be 49% as opposed to 99%?”), to his incredulity that a putatively great scientist was advocating that the origin of life on earth came from aliens seeding the planet, to his arched eyebrows over the statement by a Christ-hating scientist that no professional had ever been fired because of their position on intelligent design. The documentary would not have worked without Stein’s subtle but devastating mockery.

One of my favorite inconsistencies in the film was from that brilliant reptile Dawkins. On one hand, Dawkins insistently contended that the origin of life did not come from God while on the other hand he equally insisted that he didn’t know where the origin of life came from. So, Dawkins knows with certainty that he doesn’t know at all on how life originated but he knows with equal certainty on the subject that he is certain that he has no idea of that God didn’t have anything to do with the origin of life. If Dawkins has no idea on how life originated then how can Dawkins know that God had nothing to do with it? One would think that if Dawkins doesn’t have any idea on the origin of life then he can’t rule out the possibility of an extra-mundane Creator.

My sense is that Stein’s central desire is that debate be allowed into the halls of academia once again. I am not so sure that he is pro- ‘Intelligent Design,’ but rather he is anti-irrationalism and anti intellectual and educational tyranny. I also believe that Stein understands the intimate connection between the Evolutionary Worldview and the inhumanity of Dachau, Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen, and Auschwitz.

In the end Stein indirectly convinces the astute viewer that Evolution is not about science but rather it is about the religion of atheism, it is about large financial outlays of grants given with the purpose of reinforcing the Evolutionary Worldview, it is about the scientific community keeping their mouths shut if they value their careers or obtaining tenure, and it is about the use of raw power to intimidate the mousy into silence.

If you sometimes think that you are the only one who is seeing the Evolutionary Worldview for what it is you need to go see ‘Expelled.’ It will serve to encourage you that there are others who are seeing the hypocrisy and emptiness of the scientific community.

A look at some of Hillary’s victories during this Democratic primary season.

State — Electoral Votes

California – 55
Texas – 34
New York – 31
Florida – 27
Pennsylvania – 21
Ohio – 20
Michigan – 17
New Jersey – 15
Massachusetts – 12
Tennessee – 11
Arizona – 10
Oklahoma – 7
Arkansas – 6
New Hampshire – 4

Total Electoral Votes – 270

Clearly if Hillary were to seize the Democratic nomination she couldn’t count on winning all the states that she has won in the primary. Just as clearly if Obama were to get the Democratic nomination he would win some of those states in the general election that he lost to Hillary in the primary. Stipulating all that, what Hillary has done in her victories is that she has shown that she can win where Democrats need to win in order to be elected.

Hillary Clinton’s argument for the Democratic Presidential nomination thus becomes a bit more believable after last night’s sizable victory in Pennsylvania. Hillary needs to argue that even though she is behind in the delegate count she has won the states that a Democrat needs to win in order to be elected in November. With her wins in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island Hillary can argue that she can hold the Democratic New England stronghold. With wins in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey she can argue that she can hold the rust belt. Ohio is particularly important since in 2004 Ohio was the state that made the difference in that Presidential election. With a win in Florida Hillary can make the case that her chances are greater in another key battleground state that Democrats need to win if they harbor hopes of the White House. With wins in California and Texas she can argue that she has shown the ability to capture large percentages of the Hispanic vote (a key minority constituency for Democrats) AND she can boast of showing muscle in states with huge electoral power. Hillary needs to pull out the Electoral maps from 2000 and 2004 and show that she has carried those regions that Gore and Kerry carried.

Further Hillary needs to delicately continue to emphasize that Obama isn’t winning the White vote which any candidate must win if they desire to live in the White House. In Pennsylvania yesterday Obama lost every White vote age bracket – almost all of them by convincing margins. If Obama can’t carry the White vote in a Democratic contest it is difficult to see how he gets enough White votes to win in a general election. As I have been saying all along, America, under normal conditions, is not ready to elect a Black Marxist who disregards hard working White people.

On this point a major newspaper of questionable trustworthiness reported,

The results of exit polling, conducted at 40 precincts across Pennsylvania by Edison/Mitofsky for the television networks and The Associated Press, found stark evidence that Mr. Obama’s race could be a problem in the general election. Sixteen percent of white voters said race mattered in deciding who they voted for, and just 54 percent of those voters said they would support Mr. Obama in a general election; 27 percent of them said they would vote for Mr. McCain if Mr. Obama was the Democratic nominee, and 16 percent said they would not vote at all.

Hillary, also needs to continue to argue, as she has been, that despite Obama’s huge financial advantage, and despite the Democratic machine and the major media doing everything they can to nudge her out of the race she still continues to do something that Obama can’t do in key Democratic states and that is WIN.

Further, Hillary needs to argue that in many of the places where Obama has won there is no way in hades that Obama can repeat that victory in November. For example, the Red states in the deep south that Obama has won will not be won again by a Democrat in November. Hillary needs to argue that those Obama victories are irrelevant. (This is why an Obama win in North Carolina will be irrelevant.)

If someone would have told me at the beginning of the primary season that some Democrat would be easier to beat in the general election then Hillary Clinton, with her huge negative approval numbers, I never would have believed it, but Barack Obama clearly is a candidate that cannot win the general election short of a Republican implosion. The Clinton’s know this and have been saying it within their inner circle for some time.

If the Democrats swallow Barack Obama as their candidate only a implosion by John McCain (a real likelihood by my estimation) in the general election will save them from a landslide of the proportion of Bush over Dukakis in 1988.

Now, keep in mind that I’m handicapping this as someone who loathes all three candidates of the major parties that are left in the race. I really don’t care which socialist wins the White House. My fondest hope would be that a way might be found for all of them to lose.

“It’s not news to anybody these days – not if they watch any television or glance at the covers of the magazines lining the checkout counters at the grocery stores – that we live in a sex-saturated society where supposedly the majority of young people are “doing it,” more often than not without “benefit of marriage.” The Playboy Philosophy and its derivatives are trumpeted by a thousand voices that glamorize casual sex, while most of the shrinking mainline churches present pitifully watered-down messages about morality that confuse rather than clarify.

Academic institutions, particularly the women’s studies programs, promote the idea that marriage is optional and young people are advised to “just do it!” The secular mantra, heard from middle school on up, is that sex will make you popular and happy; it’s great recreation that is free and fun.

There is a mountain of media out there promoting a phony philosophy about the joys of casual, risky sexual experimentation; one need look no further than the junk advice featured in magazines like Cosmopolitan to see just how pernicious it is. Even the relationship advice columns in many daily newspapers spread the expectation of sexual activity even for the youngest of our teens.”

Straight Talk About Casual Sex
Janice Shaw Crouse

So, on one hand we have more sex going on at younger ages then you can find in the pages of Huxley’s ‘Brave New World.’ Furthermore, in the government schools we teach the children about sex at increasingly younger and younger ages and in doing so push sex. The culture has given its imprimatur of approval on such adolescent coitus.

But on the other hand when teen sex putatively breaks out in the context of polygamy and communal living among consistent Mormons (FLDS) in Texas suddenly pop culture is abhorred and just can’t get over the indecency of it all?

Somebody help me out here.

Naturally, as a Christian, I am foursquare against both the scenarios painted above but to be perfectly honest if I were forced to choose between the kind of fornication that is being pushed among and pursued by adolescents in our schools and the kind of polygamous marriages that might be being pushed among and pursued by adolescent girls in a FLDS commune I could see an argument being made in favor of the FLDS commune. Think about it. In the former scenario you have children contracting STD’s, or you have pregnancy out of wedlock with the eventuality of either unprepared single parents, marriages between unprepared children, or abortion. However in the polygamous FLDS compound I would bet good money you would find few STD’s, you’d find a community that is going to support the marriages and you find older men who are likely more able to support their family then the average teenage adolescent boy.

Now remember, I think both scenarios reprobate but if someone put a gun to my head and told me I had to choose one of the two illicit sex scenarios for adolescent girls to enter into there is a part of me that would lean towards choosing the FLDS.

I find myself wondering if the real reason that our sex crazed culture is piously agog over consistent Mormons having sex is not because 15 year old Mormon girls are having sex with older men but rather it is because the same 15 year old girls are not having sex in the context of the predominant pagan culture with adolescent boys.

After all, if abnormal illicit sex is going to be the cultural norm, any abnormal illicit sex that isn’t abnormal according to the culture norms of abnormality must be seen for the abnormality that it is.