Islamic Protests Ring Hollow

“Islamic protests against the slightest Western criticism of or doubt about the religion of Mohammed ring hollow... [S]o long as their religion is noted for its willingness to persecute and employ violence around the globe, they have little credibility to complain of offenses by others.” —Doug Bandow

Not That Long Ago

"Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts toward wisdom."
Psalm 90:12
"What is your life? Your life is like a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." James 4:14

"We live our lives like fruit flies, measuring everything by the length of our own little span, which isn't that long. We then assume that ancient history really was a long time ago, but it was not. No doubt somewhere in your town lives a person who is 100 years old. When that person was a baby, she could have been placed in the lap of someone (also 100) who was born when Thomas Jefferson was president. He in turn was born during the reign of William and Mary. And so on. Five such lives, end to end, take us back to the discovery of America. Five more, and we are visiting William the Conqueror. A total of twenty such lifetimes takes us back to the time of Christ. It was not that long ago"
(The Case for Classical Christian Education, pp. 157-158).

Learning Respect At Home

Seems that the government controlled, coercively tax-funded, secular humanistic public schools have done a good, no a GREAT job, of teaching anti-american egalitarianism. It bears an awful fruit.

From the blog of Douglas Wilson (http://www.dougwils.com/)

"[Y]ou cannot teach children to appreciate other cultures by teaching (by default) contempt for your own. As I have said before, a man who dearly loves his own mother will understand (fully) why another man regards his mother so highly. But a man who has contempt for his own mother will hardly rise to the occasion when someone else's mother is under assault" (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 157).

The Fright Peddlers

Biblical Wisdom teaches that "the fear of man is a snare." There are cultural consequences to that as well.

The Fright Peddlers by Rev. R.J. Rushdoony

[California Farmer 245:1 (July 10, 1976), p. 31.]

I read something last night which took me back to my school days, to the earlier years of elementary school, but not very pleasantly. It was a statement by a prominent “authority” that we have only enough coal, oil, and gas in the world’s reserves to last another twenty years. I recall hearing that statement fifty years ago in a classroom! I was also told that the new weapons of warfare would lead to the obliteration of the human race if a second world war began, and that man’s hope was in something called, I think, the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact, which almost all nations signed, promising to end all wars, and in the League of Nations. In fact, I heard quite a few horror stories in school about what was going to happen to the human race unless something or other was done. Since then, the world has gone from bad to worse, sometimes because of some of the answers then proposed!

But our children and grandchildren still get the same horror stories, and college classrooms are full of them. We are running out of gas and oil (although some good “authorities” less publicized say we have enough for at least 2000 years); we are running out of air, space, and everything, or so it is claimed. All of this, besides being false, breeds fear and hopelessness. It exalts some scientific planners as the only ones with the answers, and it makes the rest of us a herd of cattle headed for the stockyards, unless we listen to them.

Above all else, it exalts the power of man to destroy, and it produces the fear of man. And this is sinful. God demands of us, “[W]ho art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; And forgettest the LORD thy maker…?” (Isa. 51:12–13).

The creation of the world and its government is the work of the Lord, and it is not in His declared plan that man will destroy it. The fright peddlers are giving too much power to man. It is God’s power they need to recognize, not man’s. If man is the basic power, then the answers must come from man, but if God is the sovereign power, then the answers must come from God, and none other. God has provided the answers, and they are in His Word. Our problem is that men pay no attention to them.

Casual Dress

This is a problem that comes up regularly, in various publications, to me in person, or by telephone calls. It is the matter of the growing and disrespectful casualness of dress on the part of church-goers. It marks an unconcern for the dignity and holiness of worship. One pastor had a couple who would dress for worship as though for the beach yet insisted on the utmost formality at their wedding! Their idea apparently was that sneakers and shorts are good enough for God, but their wedding called for formal attire by everyone! This disrespect for God's House now marks Catholics and Protestants alike. And few women now worship with their heads covered with a hat or mantilla. Please, don't waste time telling me that St. Paul did not mean what he said; some people also deny that the Bible condemns homosexuality! If you are casual about God and His House, don't be surprised if He is casual about you. I have never liked going to church made into a fashion parade, but there is a sensible alternative to shorts and a halter! The last pastor to mention this problem to me remarked facetiously that perhaps the solution was taking a valium pill before facing the congregation!

by R J Rushdoony

The Formula for Courage

My (Biblical) religious beliefs teach me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time of my death. I do not concern myself with that, but to be always ready whenever it may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and all men would be equally brave.
—Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (1824-1863)