Just as I feared Trump was falling into an amnesty deal led by no one but RINOS and Democrats, who all hate the president and his agenda, he suddenly brings into focus the most obvious truth in the world: why WOULD we want to bring a large number of people from African countries or Haiti? Trump totally redeemed himself.
Of course, a bunch of black "commentators" like Don Lemon and other dumbass Democrats start calling all Trump supporters "racists, xenophobic, misogynous, islamaphobic...blah, blah, blah.." Democrats and idiot blacks who say this are in fact proving that they are massively racist themselves by lumping everyone of us into the same classification!! Idiots!! They are proving themselves to be stupid and racist!
Most of the 3rd world, including most of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia ARE shit-holes. It's very obvious. And they are shit-holes mostly because of low median intelligence. In fact, the only countries in any region who are better off were colonized by the (White) British. Yep, having been colonized by Britain was a good thing in every case!
There are many highly educated people from Ghana and Nigeria (former colonies of Britain) who come to the US to get PhDs at our universities. Under the merit system, these peoples would be encouraged to come here and stay here. Change can happen, but it's slow.
If our immigration system were based on merit, as President Trump wants, it would solve many problems. But we we don't want mass and uncontrolled immigration from anywhere, especially Africa, Middle East and Latin America, without proof of sufficient financial resources to support themselves once they come here, some English, and some kinds of skills, accomplishments, or academic or other qualifications that show they have something to offer our country.
NO CHAIN MIGRATION, NO MASS MIGRATION FROM ANYWHERE, NO VISA LOTTERY, NO SANCTUARY ANYTHING
MORE SELECTIVE 'MERIT-BASED' ADMISSIONS WITH CRITERIA, STRICTER BORDER ENFORCEMENT, STRICT VETTING OF VISA APPLICATIONS, MUCH MORE EFFICIENT TRACKING OF THOSE HERE ON VISAS -- INCLUDING PROMPT DEPORTATIONS ALLOW MORE MIGRATION OF POLES, HUNGARIANS, CZECHS, LATVIANS, ESTONIANS TO AMERICA AS MOST EAST EUROPEANS KNOW THE TRUE VALUE OF FREEDOM AND THE DANGER OF HUGE OVER LORDING GOVERNMENTS
EXCLUDE THE FLOOD OF IMMIGRANTS PROMOTED UNDER OBAMA IN ANY DACA REFORM DEAL!! SCREW OBAMA!
Friday, January 12, 2018
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Marxist Democrats Have Torn This Nation Apart
Martin Armstrong traces the origins of class warfare to Karl Marx,
The Clinton-allied media outlets have lost their minds and the entire MSM establishment have turned into even WORSE liars and propagandists than during the campaign season! They lie non-stop and denigrate the Trump administration & flat-out refuse to report on any of the numerous positive accomplishments of the administration. In fact, any positive accomplishment from the Trump administration REALLY incenses these idiots. This is a clue to why these people are living in an alternative universe: they thought everything was going great under Obama/Hillary!
It's because 1/2 of the nation has been been told nothing but lies for many, many years and subject to non-stop propaganda and lies from the Obama administration and the main street media corporations. Everyone has been told how great things are. Even Janet Yellen says "everything's great." Nobody has been telling the truth for decades. Now and during the campaign, when Trump and his supporters bitterly complained about the state of the nation, the 1/2 of of the nation who have swallowed the lies and otherwise unable to see the truth, are seriously confused and even angry. They want to kill the messenger! They say the messenger is the liar! Everything was good under Obama and Hillary, right?
Wrong.
The government has been understating inflation for years which has been overstating real GDP (since higher inflation in the denominator reduces the GDP number). Obama's average GDP growth was poor about 1.8%. Given that inflation was actually closer to 4%, not 2%, real GDP was about ZERO for the PAST DECADE. Obama bragged that the economy and employment is so good. But the truth is that was not good.
Speaking of GDP, US Federal debt doubled in the past 10 years to "prop-up" the weak economy. $10 Tiillion of debt-fueled spending is counted as "GDP." So, it's boosting GDP. Ten trillion dollars of debt-funded spending and under-reported inflation has masked near-recessionary conditions.
Instead, Democrats have been fed numerous false memes. One is that America is an evil place that we should we should be ashamed of. Obviously that's not true, but Democrats believe this crap. They are told that only more government creates jobs which is total bullshit. Police officers are assumed to be outrageously racist. But statistics support none of that. Blacks are told that they are "being held backs by whites" but there's not an ounce of truth to this. Only Blacks are holding back Blacks.
The Obama economy never generated enough jobs to keep up with population growth, so the labor force participation rate has declined to a 45 year low. Into this crappy job market, Obama opened the floodgates of poor and poorly educated Central American peasants into this country despite there were few jobs for them. AND IT WAS ALL ABOUT SECURING VOTES FOR DEMOCRATS. It was a massive fraud on the American people the way they surreptitiously bused these illegals to places far and wide across the country under the cover of night.
For Obama and Hillary, what was best for the country was never of primary concern. Marxist Demon_crats like Obama and Hillary have intentionally sown discord, promoted victim-hood, failed to help the economy and vilified the true heart of this country, the Deplorables, ie., White and Christian persons.
No wonder they (deranged Democrats) are literally screaming at the moon in frustration as Trump moves to fix all of the problems created or perpetuated by Obama and Hillary. Slowly long-standing fraud and lies are being revealed to everyone.
The reason that I call the Left Marxist is that this is where the class warfare begins. This philosophy did far more than simply invoke class warfare. It instigated the entire belief that government could manage the economy and eliminate the business cycle. John Maynard Keynes also followed that segment of Marx taking the position that government could control the business cycle. Therefore, both Marx and Keynes shared a common belief that the government could eliminate the business cycle. Towards the end of Keynes’ life, he relented that he had fought against the business cycle and Smith’s Invisible Hand, and came to realize he was wrong.After Trump's miraculous victory over the outrageously corrupt Hillary Clinton's cartel with her near-universal "connections" forged by influence peddling bribe payments in return for future favors and access, we've seen 1/2 of this nation in a state of near insanity. Many call it "Trump Derangement Syndrome."
The Clinton-allied media outlets have lost their minds and the entire MSM establishment have turned into even WORSE liars and propagandists than during the campaign season! They lie non-stop and denigrate the Trump administration & flat-out refuse to report on any of the numerous positive accomplishments of the administration. In fact, any positive accomplishment from the Trump administration REALLY incenses these idiots. This is a clue to why these people are living in an alternative universe: they thought everything was going great under Obama/Hillary!
It's because 1/2 of the nation has been been told nothing but lies for many, many years and subject to non-stop propaganda and lies from the Obama administration and the main street media corporations. Everyone has been told how great things are. Even Janet Yellen says "everything's great." Nobody has been telling the truth for decades. Now and during the campaign, when Trump and his supporters bitterly complained about the state of the nation, the 1/2 of of the nation who have swallowed the lies and otherwise unable to see the truth, are seriously confused and even angry. They want to kill the messenger! They say the messenger is the liar! Everything was good under Obama and Hillary, right?
Wrong.
The government has been understating inflation for years which has been overstating real GDP (since higher inflation in the denominator reduces the GDP number). Obama's average GDP growth was poor about 1.8%. Given that inflation was actually closer to 4%, not 2%, real GDP was about ZERO for the PAST DECADE. Obama bragged that the economy and employment is so good. But the truth is that was not good.
Speaking of GDP, US Federal debt doubled in the past 10 years to "prop-up" the weak economy. $10 Tiillion of debt-fueled spending is counted as "GDP." So, it's boosting GDP. Ten trillion dollars of debt-funded spending and under-reported inflation has masked near-recessionary conditions.
 |
| Debt-Fueled Spending Has Masked Depression in America for a Decade |
Instead, Democrats have been fed numerous false memes. One is that America is an evil place that we should we should be ashamed of. Obviously that's not true, but Democrats believe this crap. They are told that only more government creates jobs which is total bullshit. Police officers are assumed to be outrageously racist. But statistics support none of that. Blacks are told that they are "being held backs by whites" but there's not an ounce of truth to this. Only Blacks are holding back Blacks.
The Obama economy never generated enough jobs to keep up with population growth, so the labor force participation rate has declined to a 45 year low. Into this crappy job market, Obama opened the floodgates of poor and poorly educated Central American peasants into this country despite there were few jobs for them. AND IT WAS ALL ABOUT SECURING VOTES FOR DEMOCRATS. It was a massive fraud on the American people the way they surreptitiously bused these illegals to places far and wide across the country under the cover of night.
No wonder they (deranged Democrats) are literally screaming at the moon in frustration as Trump moves to fix all of the problems created or perpetuated by Obama and Hillary. Slowly long-standing fraud and lies are being revealed to everyone.
Sunday, January 7, 2018
Planet Of The Apes Returns to South Africa
Zimbabwe is just now expelling it's idiot President-for-life, Mugabe, a true one-man wrecking ball for Zimbabwe. I guess it's an accomplishment, since it took forever to get rid of that crazy negro Idi Amin in Uganda, who left that country in a entirely predicable economic and human disaster.
There is little evidence that black nations, or any majority black community, can govern themselves in any satisfactory way. Case in point is South Africa. Now that it's governed by the black majority, things are (predictably) going nowhere but downhill. Already, electric power has become intermittent. It gets worse. Now they have a Socialist President (Zuma) who is entirely willing to follow Mugabe's lead to confiscate the land (without compensation) which belongs to white farmers. Mugabe transferred white farm land to blacks, and the nation suffered famine. The blacks had no idea of how to farm!! That set in motion money printing that resulting in devastating hyperinflation years later.
The vast majority (90+%) of farms transferred to Blacks will fail and those people will return to the city or home town. So, the result is just plain and utter destruction. What is not commonly known is that the SA government owns a huge amount of land that could be distributed to potential black farmers. But the truth is that very few Blacks want to be farmers at all!! So this entire scheme is a joke, just like Black leadership and their so-called intelligence. Welcome to planet of the apes.
It's not just land confiscation, but Zuma wants to put the Central Bank under government control. This of course is a disaster. Excess credit growth and money printing will only end in tears, misery and poverty. Already it's leading to an exodus of foreign investment capital from the country.
The further alienation, and discrimination of White persons will lead to a brain drain as Whites leave the country. This will lead to even further decline. Another scenario is some kind of armed conflict where Whites defend themselves against these radical Negros (like Planet of the Apes?).
But dysfunction, poverty, tyranny, violence and misery is the norm in Africa since there is such little intelligence on the continent---certainly insufficient intelligence for creating any lasting prosperity or peace. It will take 1000s of years for any evolution or change---maybe longer.
I have a proposal. The USA should allow White South Africans to immigrate here, and we should simultaneously create a financial package that encourages US Blacks to relocate permanently (irrevocably) to South Africa!!
From Zero Hedge:
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress gushed a double whammy of capital-flight-creating rulings this afternoon. The Rand is tumbling on Bloomberg headlines that the ANC is said to seek constitutional changes for land expropriation (from whites) without compensation, but perhaps even more worrisome, the ruling party has decided that the Reserve Bank must be wholly owned by the state:
South Africa’s ruling party has also accepted a proposal that the central bank should be wholly state-owned rather than an institution with private shareholders, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Delegates at the African National Congress’ elective conference in Johannesburg decided 100 percent of the Reserve Bank should belong to the government, said the people who asked not to be identified because it hasn’t been made public yet.
Welcome to the return to Planet of the Apes in South Africa.
There is little evidence that black nations, or any majority black community, can govern themselves in any satisfactory way. Case in point is South Africa. Now that it's governed by the black majority, things are (predictably) going nowhere but downhill. Already, electric power has become intermittent. It gets worse. Now they have a Socialist President (Zuma) who is entirely willing to follow Mugabe's lead to confiscate the land (without compensation) which belongs to white farmers. Mugabe transferred white farm land to blacks, and the nation suffered famine. The blacks had no idea of how to farm!! That set in motion money printing that resulting in devastating hyperinflation years later.
The vast majority (90+%) of farms transferred to Blacks will fail and those people will return to the city or home town. So, the result is just plain and utter destruction. What is not commonly known is that the SA government owns a huge amount of land that could be distributed to potential black farmers. But the truth is that very few Blacks want to be farmers at all!! So this entire scheme is a joke, just like Black leadership and their so-called intelligence. Welcome to planet of the apes.
It's not just land confiscation, but Zuma wants to put the Central Bank under government control. This of course is a disaster. Excess credit growth and money printing will only end in tears, misery and poverty. Already it's leading to an exodus of foreign investment capital from the country.
The further alienation, and discrimination of White persons will lead to a brain drain as Whites leave the country. This will lead to even further decline. Another scenario is some kind of armed conflict where Whites defend themselves against these radical Negros (like Planet of the Apes?).
But dysfunction, poverty, tyranny, violence and misery is the norm in Africa since there is such little intelligence on the continent---certainly insufficient intelligence for creating any lasting prosperity or peace. It will take 1000s of years for any evolution or change---maybe longer.
I have a proposal. The USA should allow White South Africans to immigrate here, and we should simultaneously create a financial package that encourages US Blacks to relocate permanently (irrevocably) to South Africa!!
From Zero Hedge:
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress gushed a double whammy of capital-flight-creating rulings this afternoon. The Rand is tumbling on Bloomberg headlines that the ANC is said to seek constitutional changes for land expropriation (from whites) without compensation, but perhaps even more worrisome, the ruling party has decided that the Reserve Bank must be wholly owned by the state:
- SOUTH AFRICA'S ANC ECONOMIC COMMITTEE CHAIR GODONGWANA SPEAKS
- S.AFRICA ANC SEEKS CONSTITUTION CHANGES FOR LAND EXPROPRIATION
- S. AFRICA'S ANC SAYS LAND EXPROPRIATION MUSTN'T HURT ECONOMY
- S. AFRICA'S ANC SAID TO DECIDE CENTRAL BANK MUST BE STATE-OWNED
South Africa’s ruling party has also accepted a proposal that the central bank should be wholly state-owned rather than an institution with private shareholders, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Delegates at the African National Congress’ elective conference in Johannesburg decided 100 percent of the Reserve Bank should belong to the government, said the people who asked not to be identified because it hasn’t been made public yet.
Welcome to the return to Planet of the Apes in South Africa.
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Black Kids Basically Can't Perform in US High Schools Part 2
To a great extent, the US Government's student loan program is a giant welfare program to occupy young adults and "keep them off the streets." It's especially true of Black kids.
By the time black kids reach Grade 12, some 50% have already flunked out. Of the remainder, only 7% and 17% of those kids perform at "proficient" levels in math and reading, respectively. So less than ~10% of black kids can perform at Grade 12 levels, but 70% are going to college thanks to "free" US Government students loans!! And virtually none of these loans to Blacks will be paid back. You can safely bet that $Trillions of these loans will be forgiven and put on the taxpayer's debt load and a disproportionate amount of those loans forgiven will be those made to blacks.
Overall then, only 3.5% to 8.5% of all blacks can do school work expected of 18 year old high school seniors. This is entirely consistent with black IQ distributions where less than ~10% of the black population has an IQ of 100 or more (100 is the white average). A score of 100 signifies a mental age of 18 years old or that of a high school senior. One half of Blacks are basically stuck at or below the mental age of a 9th grader or age 14 for their entire lives (median IQ of 85). And every other standardized test says the same thing. Latinos are slightly better off but their High School performance and graduation rate is similar to blacks and they too are taking advantage of the US government.
This explains nearly everything about the Black cultural divide in the US. It's not much different for Arab or other minorities either. After all, only N. Europeans and E. Asians have median IQs of 100 or greater. Everyone else's median is MUCH lower at 80 to 90. It's the basis of the cultural clashes with Whites and Arabs in Europe and with Whites and Blacks in the US.
And it explains why Blacks would be happier living in all black communities, since they wouldn't suffer the humiliation of trying to compete with White kids and failing at it. Perhaps segregation was a natural and peaceful way to coexist? That said, the legal "leveling of the playing field" had to done, but "busing" and "desegregation" was a pet project from judicial activist judges who will NEVER be held to account for their failures.
When all 164 of Washington D.C. Frank W. Ballou Senior High School’s graduating seniors last year applied for and were accepted to college, the whole community—students, teachers, administrators, parents, and education reformers—had reason to celebrate the achievements of these obviously hard-working graduates. With a graduating class the school system considered “academically disadvantaged,” someone in the school district should have smelled a rat.
After all, 98 percent of Ballou’s 930 students were African-Americans, and two percent were Hispanic/Latino, according to data from the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) system. One hundred percent of them were considered “academically disadvantaged” by the system. Kids like this deserve the great opportunity that a high-quality, character-building education can help provide. There was a time when good educators, in fact, would tirelessly fight to give it to them. Those days are apparently over.
Sadly, this happy story collapsed in November, when an investigation by WAMU and NPR found that the much-ballyhooed Ballou graduated dozens of these students despite high rates of unexcused absences throughout their senior year. Half of them missed more than three months of school. One in five was absent more than present. When kids don’t show up for class, no learning can take place. And many continue to be perplexed about the growing achievement gap between black and Hispanic kids and their white counterparts. These truancy rates are a big part of the problem.
Some teachers, saying they felt pressure to pass failing students and get them to graduation, cooperated with the investigation. An internal e-mail shows that in April, just two months before the end of the school year, only 57 students were on track to graduate. Many of the others could scarcely read or write.
All of which means the graduation jubilation in June was not, in any way, justified. Put bluntly, Ballou’s administrators and some teachers cooked the books, used taxpayer money to commit fraud, and above all harmed poor black youths and their futures the most. Quite an indictment.
Perhaps even more alarmingly, NPR’s report led teachers from around the country to share similar situations in many other districts. This is a nationwide academic scandal in K-12 urban school districts, not to mention the serious disciplinary issues they have.
In late November, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and DCPS Chancellor Antwan Wilson announced two investigations arising out of the Ballou deceit. One will be conducted by D.C. State Superintendent of Education Hanseul Kang and is slated for completion later this month. Another will be led by two deputy DCPS chancellors who are examining the problem system-wide. I hold out little hope that anything more will come out of this than for the school district to attribute the problem to a lack of teacher training or a misunderstanding with no intent to deceive.
The D.C. Council’s education committee held a lengthy hearing on the matter in mid-December, and Ballou principal Yetunde Reeves has been reassigned, pending the outcome. That is likely the worst of what will happen to her, because the teaching establishment tends to punish only by reassignment.
Two things were left out of the story. First, where were the parents? They had to have some inkling that their son or daughter was not attending school regularly and certainly were not learning. They have a duty to see that their child shows up to school everyday in a state of readiness to learn. Second, what colleges accepted the kids who can’t read or write? They should be outed.
Whoever is responsible for perpetrating, encouraging, or tolerating this Ballou fraud should be held as accountable as those who were behind the Enron scandal. Having helped to deny real opportunity to mostly poor black kids who deserved it, the fraudsters should receive what every such crook deserves. Jail.
After all, 98 percent of Ballou’s 930 students were African-Americans, and two percent were Hispanic/Latino, according to data from the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) system. One hundred percent of them were considered “academically disadvantaged” by the system. Kids like this deserve the great opportunity that a high-quality, character-building education can help provide. There was a time when good educators, in fact, would tirelessly fight to give it to them. Those days are apparently over.
Sadly, this happy story collapsed in November, when an investigation by WAMU and NPR found that the much-ballyhooed Ballou graduated dozens of these students despite high rates of unexcused absences throughout their senior year. Half of them missed more than three months of school. One in five was absent more than present. When kids don’t show up for class, no learning can take place. And many continue to be perplexed about the growing achievement gap between black and Hispanic kids and their white counterparts. These truancy rates are a big part of the problem.
Some teachers, saying they felt pressure to pass failing students and get them to graduation, cooperated with the investigation. An internal e-mail shows that in April, just two months before the end of the school year, only 57 students were on track to graduate. Many of the others could scarcely read or write.
All of which means the graduation jubilation in June was not, in any way, justified. Put bluntly, Ballou’s administrators and some teachers cooked the books, used taxpayer money to commit fraud, and above all harmed poor black youths and their futures the most. Quite an indictment.
Perhaps even more alarmingly, NPR’s report led teachers from around the country to share similar situations in many other districts. This is a nationwide academic scandal in K-12 urban school districts, not to mention the serious disciplinary issues they have.
In late November, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and DCPS Chancellor Antwan Wilson announced two investigations arising out of the Ballou deceit. One will be conducted by D.C. State Superintendent of Education Hanseul Kang and is slated for completion later this month. Another will be led by two deputy DCPS chancellors who are examining the problem system-wide. I hold out little hope that anything more will come out of this than for the school district to attribute the problem to a lack of teacher training or a misunderstanding with no intent to deceive.
The D.C. Council’s education committee held a lengthy hearing on the matter in mid-December, and Ballou principal Yetunde Reeves has been reassigned, pending the outcome. That is likely the worst of what will happen to her, because the teaching establishment tends to punish only by reassignment.
Two things were left out of the story. First, where were the parents? They had to have some inkling that their son or daughter was not attending school regularly and certainly were not learning. They have a duty to see that their child shows up to school everyday in a state of readiness to learn. Second, what colleges accepted the kids who can’t read or write? They should be outed.
Whoever is responsible for perpetrating, encouraging, or tolerating this Ballou fraud should be held as accountable as those who were behind the Enron scandal. Having helped to deny real opportunity to mostly poor black kids who deserved it, the fraudsters should receive what every such crook deserves. Jail.
Monday, January 1, 2018
A Theology for the 21st Century: Faith Is Not Believing The Unbelievable
A relative of mine was explaining to me that for Christians to accept the Holy Trinity; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, that they must believe that Jesus was literally and physically resurrected or "the whole thing falls apart."
If you don't believe in levitated dead bodies and the "whole thing falls apart," then it's a very shaky edifice in the 21st century, isn't it? Since no dead body has ever physically re-animated in thousands of years, it's unlikely that it ever happened, so it's a very shaky foundation indeed.
I can't claim to completely understand the symbolism of the Holy Trinity. But do I really need to? And why create a "litmus" test that requires me to believe the unbelievable? Why aren't we satisfied with the simple understanding that the nature of God was revealed by Jesus--and that same God remains the core and ground of our being for each of us today? And with our death, the deepest part of our being likely persists unchanged beyond our physical death. (No one knows if our self-awareness persists after death.) See my blog post "A Theology For The 21st Century."
Faith should not be about believing the unbelievable. As a man of science, I don't literally believe in most of the miracle stories throughout the Bible. I have good company. Thomas Jefferson worked on a version of the New Testament where he removed all of the miracle stories to leave only the moral teachings.
I don’t believe in the literal resurrection of Jesus; but I accept that it’s a story (myth) with huge meaning. All meaning is found in the symbolic (myth). Jesus’s followers had just suffered the most humiliating and heart-breaking defeat conceivable. For it to happen to the man in whom his followers could see the divine-itself is beyond horrible. His followers could see that Jesus and his teachings revealed the “the beyond within our midst”,“ultimate ground of our being", "our ultimate reality”and THE MEANING OF LIFE ITSELF!
For his followers to see such a humiliating end at the hands of the ham-handed, amoral political authorities is absolutely intolerable. That could not stand!! So, over time his followers, the early Jesus movement and early Church had to protect and preserve his legacy. The resurrection stories did this and became biblical canon. They COULD NOT ALLOW his devastating and unjust crucifixion to end his story! This is the exact point where life, depth and meaning is captured by myth. So yeah, I believe that Jesus is fully God and fully human.
I recently was at the gym and I noticed one of the young gym instructors working with a disabled man. I was close enough to see how attentive, empathetic and supportive this young guy was, like he was bending over backwards to “will the good” for his client. As I was watching, I could see empathy, goodwill and even beauty. I understood that I was witnessing something close to the meaning of life-itself; maybe even the nature of God working in the world. The young instructor was responding to a need so beautifully and his client was open to receiving help. I had to move over to a quiet corner of the gym so I could let flow a few tears. They were tears of joy. Thanks to education and experience, I was able and ready to see the depths of that moment; something extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary. Sometimes movies or books bring me similarly to the depths of meaning of life itself (which is God).
Might this be similar to what Jesus’s followers saw? If so, is it really that different to what the followers of Buddha might have seen?
So God is in plain sight if you know where to look; in acts of kindness, good will and desire for justice for others who we meet---the very definition of the New Testament's 'apape' love. Miracles are not where boulders are moved or where waters are parted but where minds are changed and hearts moved by deep understanding and personal interactions. Think of the reconciliation revealed by the parable of the prodigal son. God is pulling all of us toward the "good" by tugging at our hearts and minds.
It’s clear to even conservative scholars that the Christmas stories of Jesus’ birth were added later by the early Church to complete a “picture.” (This happens a lot in the New Testament. There are also many "sayings" of Jesus that were most likely "written-in" by the early Church.) There’s no historical evidence of any miraculous events occurring anywhere near the time when Jesus was born. In fact, we don’t even know when Jesus was born! But isn’t Christmastime really the most wonderful time of the year? Aren’t billions of people’s lives enriched immensely by these wonderful stories (myths)?? Still convinced that myths don’t have meaning??
It’s important to teach these kinds of things or smart young people will continue to be “turned-off” to Christianity because of a “requirement” to believe the unbelievable.
If you don't believe in levitated dead bodies and the "whole thing falls apart," then it's a very shaky edifice in the 21st century, isn't it? Since no dead body has ever physically re-animated in thousands of years, it's unlikely that it ever happened, so it's a very shaky foundation indeed.
I can't claim to completely understand the symbolism of the Holy Trinity. But do I really need to? And why create a "litmus" test that requires me to believe the unbelievable? Why aren't we satisfied with the simple understanding that the nature of God was revealed by Jesus--and that same God remains the core and ground of our being for each of us today? And with our death, the deepest part of our being likely persists unchanged beyond our physical death. (No one knows if our self-awareness persists after death.) See my blog post "A Theology For The 21st Century."
Faith should not be about believing the unbelievable. As a man of science, I don't literally believe in most of the miracle stories throughout the Bible. I have good company. Thomas Jefferson worked on a version of the New Testament where he removed all of the miracle stories to leave only the moral teachings.
I don’t believe in the literal resurrection of Jesus; but I accept that it’s a story (myth) with huge meaning. All meaning is found in the symbolic (myth). Jesus’s followers had just suffered the most humiliating and heart-breaking defeat conceivable. For it to happen to the man in whom his followers could see the divine-itself is beyond horrible. His followers could see that Jesus and his teachings revealed the “the beyond within our midst”,“ultimate ground of our being", "our ultimate reality”and THE MEANING OF LIFE ITSELF!
For his followers to see such a humiliating end at the hands of the ham-handed, amoral political authorities is absolutely intolerable. That could not stand!! So, over time his followers, the early Jesus movement and early Church had to protect and preserve his legacy. The resurrection stories did this and became biblical canon. They COULD NOT ALLOW his devastating and unjust crucifixion to end his story! This is the exact point where life, depth and meaning is captured by myth. So yeah, I believe that Jesus is fully God and fully human.
I recently was at the gym and I noticed one of the young gym instructors working with a disabled man. I was close enough to see how attentive, empathetic and supportive this young guy was, like he was bending over backwards to “will the good” for his client. As I was watching, I could see empathy, goodwill and even beauty. I understood that I was witnessing something close to the meaning of life-itself; maybe even the nature of God working in the world. The young instructor was responding to a need so beautifully and his client was open to receiving help. I had to move over to a quiet corner of the gym so I could let flow a few tears. They were tears of joy. Thanks to education and experience, I was able and ready to see the depths of that moment; something extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary. Sometimes movies or books bring me similarly to the depths of meaning of life itself (which is God).
Might this be similar to what Jesus’s followers saw? If so, is it really that different to what the followers of Buddha might have seen?
So God is in plain sight if you know where to look; in acts of kindness, good will and desire for justice for others who we meet---the very definition of the New Testament's 'apape' love. Miracles are not where boulders are moved or where waters are parted but where minds are changed and hearts moved by deep understanding and personal interactions. Think of the reconciliation revealed by the parable of the prodigal son. God is pulling all of us toward the "good" by tugging at our hearts and minds.
It’s clear to even conservative scholars that the Christmas stories of Jesus’ birth were added later by the early Church to complete a “picture.” (This happens a lot in the New Testament. There are also many "sayings" of Jesus that were most likely "written-in" by the early Church.) There’s no historical evidence of any miraculous events occurring anywhere near the time when Jesus was born. In fact, we don’t even know when Jesus was born! But isn’t Christmastime really the most wonderful time of the year? Aren’t billions of people’s lives enriched immensely by these wonderful stories (myths)?? Still convinced that myths don’t have meaning??
It’s important to teach these kinds of things or smart young people will continue to be “turned-off” to Christianity because of a “requirement” to believe the unbelievable.
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