Getting back at universities that hate urinals

And yet there are those—mostly young, mostly naïve, mostly gay, mostly devoid of rudimentary reasoning skills—who deign to come and take away my urinals in their mad quest to make everything “gender-neutral” so the ridiculously tiny minority of genuine biological hermaphrodites can live their lives not feeling quite so uncomfortable as they otherwise would in situations requiring them to either urinate or defecate in public places.

Most disturbingly, the people who push this nonsense are clustered most stubbornly in our places of higher education.

My two cents

That’s a great last sentence.

I’ve heard about this trend in certain universities, those which are on a self-righteous quest to eliminate urinals and make every man sit on the toilet. I always thought that scheme was ridiculous. I’d love to see that way of thinking destroyed. Talk about a “construct”.

I thought universities were places of higher education (in its essential sense, not its existentialist sense). I am reminded of 1 Samuel 25:22 in the King James Version, and in that sense, gender-neutral bathroom designs are anti-Christian and anti-Bible.

The linked article is written in a very hard-hitting way, and it’s refreshing to see that.

Quote source

Goad, J. (2013). The Importance of Gender-Neutral Public Restrooms for Bisexual Space Aliens. Available: http://takimag.com/article/the_importance_of_gender_neutral_public_restrooms_for_bisexual_space_aliens/print#axzz2TdYGzWgz. Last accessed 18th May 2013.

R.J. Rushdoony’s critical contribution to creationism

One of the reviewers [of The Genesis Flood manuscript] had been Rev. Rousas J. Rushdoony, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church pastor in California. He was quite enthusiastic about the book and wanted us to get it published in its entirety as soon as possible. He was a friend of Charles Craig, owner of a small, non-profit publishing concern called the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., in Philadelphia. Rushdoony’s connection at P&R paid off for [Henry] Morris and [John] Whitcomb and The Genesis Flood was released in 1961. Rushdoony was able to see through the Dispensationalism of the authors and see the value of the book that they had written…

Rushdoony and Craig both understood that much of the battle for biblical authority is won or lost in the first several chapters of the Bible. Morris’s scientific expertise made the Flood much more than a simple theological concept. It had far-reaching implications and the shock waves are still being felt today. While Dispensational publisher Moody was dragging its feet and playing politics, P&R was willing to take the risk and cast their eschatological differences to the wind.

My two cents

Cover of Genesis Flood

This is an important part of Christian theological history from the 2oth century. When most people think of R.J. Rushdoony, they think of Biblical law, but it is equally important to see his crucial role in young-earth creationism as well.

I find a lot of books on Presbyterian & Reformed’s website interesting. I was glad to hear that The Genesis Flood has been reprinted as a 50th anniversary edition, and I really enjoyed the video made in celebration of its release. Imagine how great it would be to marry girls who like things like this as well!

I also have a DVD of Dr. John Whitcomb, and I like his delivery and exposition on the book of Genesis. If it ever happened, I wish I could be in the same room as Whitcomb, Morris and Rushdoony—three giants against humanism.

Source

The American Vision. (2006). The Recovery of Biblical Creationism. Available: http://americanvision.org/1037/recovery-of-biblical-creationism/. Last accessed 16th May 2013.

Feminism’s betrayal of women into childlessness

Then I meet women in their 40s who are devastated because they spent two decades working on a PhD or becoming a partner in a law firm, and they missed out on having a family. Thanks to the feminist movement, they discounted their biological clocks. They’ve missed the opportunity and they’re bereft. Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating. But far from taking responsibility for any of this, the leaders of the women’s movement close ranks against anyone who dares to question them – as I have learned to my cost. I don’t want to hurt my mother [Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple], but I cannot stay silent. I believe feminism is an experiment, and all experiments need to be assessed on their results. Then, when you see huge mistakes have been paid, you need to make alterations.

My two cents

I’ve heard some feminists deny that feminism is anti-family. Then I come across quotes like this.

I like how a woman equates feminism with huge mistakes. I also like how she labels it as an experiment—instead of something absolute, universal, or timeless.

The Bible says that bearing children and being a parent is a blessing, especially if it’s a big family. (Psalm 127:5). I love how Rebecca Walker’s article got 31,500 likes on Facebook. That shows that people are thinking in line with the Bible’s position on parenthood—in contrast to feminism’s position.

While there would be some feminists who are also mothers, I suppose they would be of the moderate variety. Rebecca Walker’s article also has some other good points, which I may quote at another time; I hope more articles like hers are published online and in newspapers.

Quote source

Walker, R. (2008). How my mother’s fanatical views tore us apart. Available: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1021293/How-mothers-fanatical-feminist-views-tore-apart-daughter-The-Color-Purple-author.html. Last accessed 14th May 2013.

P. Andrew Sandlin’s straightforward assessment of Tony Jones’ theology

Think about this. Here’s a leader in the Christian church [Tony Jones] who invites readers to respond to his controversial proposal [that homosexuality is compatible with Christianity] but prohibits them from quoting the Bible.  There’s an obvious reason for this prohibition: the Bible’s not on his side. Worse, the Bible is so far on the other side that he needs to get rid of the Bible to give his side credibility…But more significantly, nobody before recent times could imagine a leader in the Christian church arguing to get rid of Bible-quoting in fashioning an ethics.

My two cents

Dispute of Jesus and the Pharisees over tribute money (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I guess it was a bit sad to see P. Andrew Sandlin leaving Christian Reconstruction, and while I don’t read about him too much nowadays, I can appreciate this straightforward assessment that I pulled from his blog a little while ago. He tells it like it is.

If we take Jones’ argument to its logical conclusion, then I suppose we couldn’t quote from the Bible to support the Resurrection either. Instead, we would have to rely on his self-determined “theological and/or philosophical arguments”. Without the Bible, what would you base your theological arguments on anyway? My first thoughts were inference, word of mouth, educated guesses, or a make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach.

More to the point, I think of temptation of Jesus, where He would always quote from the Old Testament to get back at Satan’s temptations. But, using Jones’ approach, Jesus may have been wrong in formulating his ethics. Ethics according to Mr Jones, or Lord Jones? I thought there was only one Lord.

Quote source

Sandlin, P.A. (2012). Christian Ethics in the Wake of Hypocritical Relativists, Imperious Pharisees, Irrational Postmoderns, and Squishy Emergents. Available: http://docsandlin.com/2012/10/30/christian-ethics-in-the-wake-of-hypocritical-relativists-imperious-pharisees-irrational-postmoderns-and-squishy-emergents/. Last accessed 12th May 2013.

A positive exchange of ideas between Catholics and Protestants

I’ll begin with some excerpts from Anna M.H. in a note to Jennie Chancey:

I was indeed happy to find a [site] that is against feminism. I am a stay at home mother, 21 years old with one daughter…I attended a catholic college, Christendom college, which is entirely faithful to the magesterial teachings of the Church, both in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, handed down [through] the apostles.

While at Christendom I took a class on Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body. This is a compilation of a series of Wednesday audiences that he gave in his papacy meditating on the first few [chapters] in Genesis as well as the beatitude “blessed are the pure of heart,” Paul’s meditations on the glorified body and numerous other biblical passages dealing with the human body, the marital act, men and women and redemption. The pope in his sermons has theorized that all the problems of immodesty, fornication, contraception, abortion, and divorce, can be traced to the problem of the human person not being accepted as a gift to the loved but as an object to be used…I appreciate your [site] and would encourage you to read the Pope’s theology of the body as it offers more of a “why” rather than a “how” for modest dress. Thanks again for a wonderful [site] and you are in my prayers.

Your sister in Christ,
Anna M. H

The response from Chancey:

What a beautiful, thoughtful note! Thank you so much for taking the time to write. Your comments are so completely on target and reflect exactly what we are trying to get across in the Modesty section [of the LAF website]. Our postmodern (and post-Christian) culture is so intent upon “de-constructing” truth, art, beauty, and all things sacred that they are tearing the human body limb from limb–both literally (abortion) and figuratively (in clothing and movies)…

Your points are very timely and very helpful. I am a Protestant and do believe that Scripture gives us beautiful guidelines from beginning to end for our health, wholeness, and happiness, but I can still appreciate Pope John Paul II’s reflections on the created order and the beatitudes. Lovely!…With Christ as our focus, all other things fall away into insignificance.

Blessings in Christ,
Mrs. Jennie Chancey

My two cents

Pope John Paul II’s visit to the Polish Parliament on June 11, 1999. Source: http://www.senat.pl/k5/agenda/index.htm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When talking about Catholic-Protestant relations, it tends to carry baggage. Putting the baggage aside, I really like the exchange that happened here.

With the first quote, I’ve sometimes blogged about the theology of the state, but I am glad to see there’s also a theology of the body. Come to think of it, perhaps there should be a theology of every concept, rather than just a philosophy of every concept.

Second, I like how Catholics use the term “the marital act”. Maybe there are Protestants who use that term as well, but it’s great how the term makes an inescapable link with the context of matrimony, rather than just a purely naturalistic or physical process.

Third, it was good to see a reference to deconstructionism and how it’s affecting our society. When most people come across a word like that, they might gloss over, but for those who don’t, they’ll understand why it’s important to know of its meaning, especially in a Christian context.

Quote source

Chancey, J. (2005). Commentary and Questions from LAF Readers. Available: http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/artman/publish/Comments_and_Letters_23/Commentary_and_Questions_from_LAF_Readers_18841001884.shtml. Last accessed 10th May 2013.

A Deistic fabrication of God’s nature

Larry Langston—a former Christian turned Deist—tries this on for size:

If God knows in advance those going to hell what could possibly be the point in creating them. It could only imply a masochist or despotic God who enjoyed creating suffering. There is no way that love could possibly conceive such a horrible plan of creation. Christianity has actually turned God into a tyrant who demands His creatures to love and worship Him or be cast into eternal punishment…

Why did God put the forbidden tree there in the first place? A minister friend of mine with a Doctorate in religion answered the question this way. God is love, love demands freedom, freedom demands the ability to choose right or wrong so there had to be that option to satisfy love. But this would make God dependent on evil for love. Also, it would mean there could be no love or freedom in Heaven where there is no evil.

But Bill Vallicella has seen this kind of thing before. While his sentiments were directed at atheists, they can pretty much be applied to Deists as well:

The critic of religion wants to pin it down, reducing it to dogmatic contents, so as to attack it where it is weakest. Paradoxically, the atheist ‘knows’ more about God than the sophisticated theist – he knows so much that he knows no such thing could exist. He ‘knows’ the divine nature and knows that it is incompatible with the existence of evil — to mention one line of attack. What he ‘knows,’ of course, is only the concept he himself has fabricated and projected. Aquinas, by contrast, held that the existence of God is far better known than God’s nature — which remains shrouded in a cloud of unknowing.

My two cents

I’m glad I found that second quote.

One mistake I see from anti-Christians is when they think they’ve trumped God by using a formula that goes something like:

1. Ask a well-meaning question about God—but reduce Him to one adjective (to the exclusion of all others)
2. follow it with a proposition that goes against the adjective
3. observe that cherry-picked (2) doesn’t line up with cherry-picked (1), and reason that God/Christianity must be wrong/evil/false
4. continue to ignore all of the other adjectives that could also describe God.

The last time I checked, God wasn’t supposed to be limited to one adjective.

Come to think of it, I don’t know if any conscious entity can be pinned down to one adjective.

I wonder if there’s a name for this type of scheme. And as far as theistic religions go, I’d like to figure out which is the bigger cop-out—Unitarian Universalism or Deism.

Quote sources

1. Langston, L. (n.d). No One Really Knows. Available: http://www.deism.com/baptisttodeist.htm. Last accessed 8th May 2013.
   
2. Vallicella, B. (2013). Mature Religion is Open-Ended Too: More Quest Than Conclusions. Available: http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2013/01/mature-religion-is-open-ended-too-more-quest-than-conclusions.html. Last accessed 8th May 2013.

Putting Satan in his place

First off, a little background about the book of Job. Christian theology does not state that God and Satan are in any way equals or counterparts. All angels, including Satan, are inferior created beings who are as helpless to resist God’s omnipotence as we are.

My two cents

Yes, I hate it when people give an inflated sense of power or fear to Satan. What, so people are going to hell for not respecting him?

The same goes for Armageddon—yes, there will be trouble for humans (especially the gullible ones), but the final battle isn’t going to be some competitive prize-fight where an evenly matched battle between good and evil means that Satan gives Yahweh a run for his money. Instead, the outcome has been predestined to be a crushing defeat. To use some leetspeak, Satan will be pwned.

I’ve also heard of a devouring lion, yet lions were pretty weak competition for mortals like Samson.

Finally, I hate how there are Christians who will say God’s name in vain—but never Satan’s. This needs to stop.

Quote source

The Messianic Drew. (2011). Did God Create Evil. Available: http://messianicdrew.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/answering-tovia-singer-did-god-create.html. Last accessed 6th May 2013.