Sibby Online

Religion is not limited to God

This blows the wool off the atheists use of secularism:

Imagine a generic conference on how to improve K-12 education where a wide range of subjects are discussed, including the biggies: Where do we come from and how should we live? One day one of the participants named Glen walks in with a poster of the Ten Commandments and a roll of tape in his hand. He wants to tape it to the wall as they have something to say about many of the subjects covered in the ongoing discussions.

The ears of a closet atheist named Bob perk up. Bob can no longer sit still as the "Divine Foot" is kicking at the door.

But Bob is in a quandary. His atheism is most effective when invisible to others. If he objects as an atheist, his cover will be blown and he knows he's not going to be effective appealing to his own anti-God religion. He can't say, we can't have the Ten Commandments for I don't believe in them. Nor can he say that the precepts mentioned in the commandments are bad ideas, for then he invites a discussion of them, the very thing he cannot tolerate.

Bob has many Christian friends in the room, for they find reason and science consistent with many of their non-scriptural views. They probably don't even know Bob's an atheist. So, rather than raising his flag, Bob pulls aside a "mainstream" Christian buddy named Tom at the coffee break.

He says: "Tom, you know the primary rule of our forum is that it remain secular and non-controversial. Although Glen is a nice guy, he's obviously violating the rule. What do you think 'we' should do?"

After the break, Tom takes the floor after a nudge from Bob, and says: "Well, Glen, I appreciate your idea, but we have this rule that the discussion will remain secular, and not religious. When you bring God into the room, you violate that rule. So, we think you need to keep your scriptures at home."

In this way, the atheist never reveals his true religious objection to the commandments. Instead of discussing their substance, he focuses on a rule of procedure that everyone can agree with: "Let's avoid controversy by keeping the discussion secular, not religious."

Glen is crushed, but then has a bright idea. He says: "Well the ideas in the commandments address the subjects we have been discussing. Furthermore, they have merit in their own right as they promote healthy lifestyles, so we ought to be able to consider them."

Bob winks at Tom, as he stands to back up his buddy: "Well, Glen, those views come right out of the Bible. How can they not be religious? Glen, we know you're a recovering alcoholic, but can't you leave the AA 12 step program at home?"

Group-think sets in, and everyone nods in agreement as no one wants to be linked to a knuckle-dragging, right-wing religious fundamentalist described in "Inherit the Wind."

Feeling the crushing antipathy, Glen rolls up his poster and slinks to the back of the room, vowing never to return to scorn that can be cut with a knife.

Glen's mistake is that he agreed with the implicit assumption of Bob and Tom that religion is just confined to belief in God. Religion is not limited to God. It also includes the religion of no-God, atheism. If he had taken this into account he could have completely changed the discussion and the result by saying:

Well, Tom, I don't know if you're an atheist or not. However, what you are advocating is that we embrace the core tenets of that religion. Atheism seeks to remove God from the room, along with all of His wisdom. If we do as you request, we will be promoting that religion. The only way we can keep the room secular when discussing inherently religious subjects is to allow the ideas of the atheist and theist to compete. Why don't we put up on the other wall the "Humanist Manifesto." We can then compare the competing ideas of the two religions and see which make the most sense.

Of course, the atheist can't tolerate that discussion, for its very nature admits the possibility he denies. Furthermore, he knows his belief system is religious, particularly because the courts have on numerous occasions agreed that it is. And now, he has been exposed for what he is, just as religious as the next fellow.

Obamacare to increase health care costs

Here is another example of the far-left policies doing teh exact opposite of what they are said to do. Obamacare was suppose to deal with the rising costs of health care, but instead it will be used to add costs:

Few Democratic candidates are willing to talk about the health-care bill -- except the ones running ads to remind the electorate that they voted against it.

Still, the president will speak today before a group of state insurance regulators, while a coalition of labor unions and liberal activist groups organize rallies around the country. They'll undoubtedly focus on some of the new law's more popular provisions, many of which start today -- while ignoring the mandates, taxes and rationing that will come later. Indeed, the provisions they'll tout come with asterisks that they won't mention.

For example, starting today parents will be able to keep their children on the parents' insurance plan through age 25. But that doesn't come for free. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that doing so will cost an estimated $3,380 a year per child. And since employers are balking at picking up the added cost, the parents themselves will have to foot the bill.

Similarly, as of today, insurers can no longer impose lifetime or annual limits on benefits or refuse coverage to children with preexisting conditions. One can argue that these new rules are the best way to deal with thorny issues -- but no one can claim that insurers will do these things out of the goodness of their hearts.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. If you're going to require insurers to cover more expensive customers and provide more benefits, it's going to cost more -- and those costs are going to be passed on to customers in the form of higher premiums. When New York implemented many of these same insurance rules in 1983, premiums rose by nearly $500 per policy -- resulting in nearly 500,000 New Yorkers dropping their insurance.

Already this fall, we're seeing premiums jump as much as 9 percent nationally next year, especially in the individual and small-group markets. Some customers are seeing hikes of 20 percent or more. And a significant portion of this increase is directly traceable to the new rules. 

Is a state budget really "balanced" if its own deficits are being masked by federal-deficit spending?

Tom Tancredo ask and answers, and then asks an even tougher question:

Most state governments have a constitutional requirement to balance the budget each year, and as we all know, the federal government does not. But here's a question few state-level politicians want to answer: Is a state budget really "balanced" if its own deficits are being masked by federal-deficit spending?

My own state of Colorado is a good example. State lawmakers of both political parties have gotten used to looking at annual state revenues in three categories: the general fund, cash funds and federal funds. Guess which one of the three is growing even in a recession.

Federal funds have become a routine, standard part of state budgeting. Unfortunately, too many state lawmakers have come to think of federal funds as a new "fill behind" to make up for declines in state revenue. This practice reduces the pressure to economize or to keep state expenditures in line with state revenues. Indeed, the Obama administration for the first time has offered federal funds explicitly targeted to offset reductions in state funding in education and other fields.

We are not talking here about federal funding for what are called "categorical programs" in education, programs with a specific purpose or targeted to a specific group. There are more than 50 such federal categorical in K-12 education, and each has its own congressional appropriation or "funding stream." Here we are talking instead about the very new idea of federal funds that augment state spending for essential, core functions, like teacher salaries.

Putting aside for the moment the important question of whether or not it is a good idea to involve Congress and the U.S. Department of Education in state-level decisions on basic educational services, there is a very practical question on the immediate horizon. What happens when the federal Santa Claus takes a holiday – or files for bankruptcy?

...

Across the nation, state lawmakers of both parties have been swept up in the federal game of federal dollars driving expansion of supposedly state-run programs, always on the promise of continued federal funding. But these federal "matching dollars" can only be provided by continued deficit funding and trillions of dollars in new debt.

How will states fund these programs when federal dollars disappear?

This is not a hypothetical question. Last month Colorado Gov. Ritter was forced to find an additional $67 million in the state's general fund to offset an "unexpected shortfall" in federal Medicaid funding. Congress did not appropriate the amount expected and thus programmed into state budget assumptions.

But the story does not end there. On Sept. 20, the state's Office of State Planning and Budgeting released its quarterly assessment of the state's economy and estimate of state revenue for the current fiscal year. The governor must now come up with $189 million of additional budget reductions. What about the budget assumptions for the 2012 fiscal year? Buried in the economic forecast is the news that federal Medicaid reimbursements are even more uncertain in the forthcoming 2012 fiscal year because federal "stimulus funding" will not be renewed.

In Colorado and elsewhere, federal tax dollars have been used to seduce state lawmakers – and citizens – into ever-expanding entitlements that cannot be sustained.

States have been willing participants in this dishonest shell game, and that must end. If I am elected governor of Colorado, it will.

Human "reason" and materialistic science, not the wisdom of God

It was Thomas Sowell who said that intellect is not wisdom. John Calvert seems to agree:

Atheists believe life just arises from matter. It's not created for a purpose by a super-intellect others call God. Although life looks superbly designed, atheists and evolutionary biologists claim its apparent design is just an illusion. They have faith that mindless moving atoms and molecules acted on by blind physical constraints somehow "evolve" into life so complex that even humans can't imagine how to make it.

Given the faith that life comes from matter rather than mind, the atheist rejects the "wisdom of God" about the nature of life and how it should be lived. Since life reduces to matter, the atheist has no reason to believe that it continues after death. The materialistic logic of death then leads to the selfish goal of living life in a way that will avoid suffering to attain happiness. According to the "Humanist Manifestos," the guide to this nirvana is human "reason" and materialistic science, not the wisdom of God.

"Reason" deserves quotes. The inherent problem with "reason" is that it is only as good as that which informs it. If the faith of materialistic science that informs reasoned atheism is wrong, then we can't expect the "reasoned" output to be right. Garbage in yields garbage out. Misinformed and biased reason and science can lead us to garbage like eugenics, the Holocaust and sexual promiscuity that can destroy the individual, family and culture.

Of course, many prudent atheists don't ignore all the wisdom of God. That wisdom, which is steeped in reason as well as faith has optimized the mental and physical health of individuals, families and Western civilization for thousands of years.

Unlike TV evangelists, most atheists and agnostics are hard to identify. Many may not even know they fall into this class. I didn't until I became a Christian at age 37. The persecution of heretics for millennia has kept all but a growing number of outspoken "Brights" in the closet.

More importantly, an atheist need not be a raving evangelist to accomplish his mission. The tenets of his religion blend with the mundane and temporal as he uses materialistic "science" and reason to inform his views about the big questions of life. It's easy to silently promote his religion with "secular" labels. Indeed, many atheists deny their worldview is religious.

So if one went to a sporting event, one might easily misclassify those in the stadium based on their behavior. Highly disciplined and principled atheists might "look" like Christians and many Christians who have fought demons all their lives might "look" like pagans.

The pews of Christian churches are likely filled by countless agnostics who take a seat to enjoy the political, social and economic benefits of being a member of a caring, family values community.

Until recently, atheists did not have written tenets, worship in churches or have recognized organizations. In 1933 they came out of the closet with the publication of the "Humanist Manifesto," which sets out the specific tenets of their religion. As their number grew, they began to meet in organized churches worshipping reason and science, rather than God and his wisdom. In 1964 the Unitarian and Universalist churches merged after accepting atheists into their congregations. The American Humanist Association actively evangelizes atheism as it files suits to enjoin any public mention of God.

Atheist don't wear crosses, burkas or yarmulkes, although more and more display Darwin fish on their bumpers. So how does one recognize the practice of their religion, one that eschews God and His wisdom? When does one know atheism is at work?

The telltale signs emerge as soon as God or his wisdom enters the room. At that point, the evangelical atheist can't sit still. As scientist Richard Lewontin said, our commitment to "materialism is absolute, for we can't allow a Divine Foot in the door."

 

Tea Party Movement need to look beyond fiscal issue

Phyllis Schlafly:

But the Ronald Reagan model for victory requires a coalition of active fiscal, national defense and social conservatives, and Republicans will be losers if they don't stick to that winning formula and rejoice that, as Time Magazine's cover announces this week, "It's Tea Party Time."

Candidates in 2010 cannot fail to address and answer questions about the social issues decided by judges this year. One major social issue is support of marriage as one man and one woman, which is defined in 31 states by votes of the people, plus the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Supremacist judges have been overriding the will of the people on marriage. Although a majority of Californians passed a citizen initiative outlawing same-sex marriage, on Aug. 4 a federal judge knocked this out, saying Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

On July 8, another federal judge declared that DOMA's one-man-one-woman definition of marriage is unconstitutional. On July 15, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals approved same-sex marriage, writing that it would somehow violate "human rights" to allow Washington residents to make the final decision through a citizen initiative.

Social issues? You bet. All federal candidates should be required to address the issue of marriage and the abuse of power by out-of-control judges.

Immigration is another social issue where decision-making power is being taken away from the people and assumed by supremacist judges. On Sept. 9, a federal appellate court ruled against the Hazleton, Pa., city ordinance that required landlords to rent only to legal residents and employers to hire only legal residents.

On July 28, a federal judge proclaimed that Arizona cannot enforce its new law passed to enforce existing laws about illegal aliens. The judge thus overrode the will of the big majority of Americans who not only support the Arizona law but want their own state to pass a law just like it.

On July 14, a federal judge stopped enforcement of a Nebraska law (passed by the unicameral legislature 44-to-5) establishing that abortionists should inform women about health risks (such as breast cancer). Abortion is a very live social issue now that polls show the majority of Americans believe abortion is wrong.

Congress is now debating the military rule called "don't ask, don't tell." But on Sept. 9, a federal judge grabbed the issue away from our elected representatives, calling it unconstitutional.

The fiscal conservatives who argue that only money issues should be part of political debate should face the reality that social issues are the chief purpose of President Obama's big-spending bills. The decline in marriage and the increase in illegitimate births (41 percent last year of all U.S. births) are the principal cause of the growth of the welfare state.

Federal taxpayers are now providing some or all the living expenses for 40 percent of Americans through means-tested handouts, mostly to the unmarried. This is the actuality of Obama's boast to Joe the Plumber to spread the wealth around.

The Limbaugh Law replaced the William F. Buckley Rule

Jonah Goldberg:

The conservative "establishment" had backed Mike Castle in the Delaware primary over the "tea party" favorite, Christine O'Donnell. O'Donnell won, but only after being wounded by the likes of Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer and the folks at the Weekly Standard and my own stomping ground, National Review.

The argument got heated. O'Donnell's most ardent supporters imbued opposition to her with deep ideological significance despite the fact that most of Castle's nominal supporters were far to Castle's right and more ideologically simpatico with O'Donnell. They backed Castle on the tactical grounds that he was a shoo-in to win the general election, which would give the GOP another Senate seat.

But Delaware's Republican primary voters saw it a different way. They have had enough with "RINOs" -- "Republicans in Name Only." The Limbaugh Law replaced the William F. Buckley Rule. The latter held that conservatives should vote for the most rightward electable candidate. The Limbaugh Law says that when the country is in open revolt against liberalism and Republicans are riding an election wave, you should vote conservative every time.

Time will tell which side will lose that debate, but one thing is already clear: The tea parties won (thank goodness).

It takes two to tango, and it takes two to fight a civil war. What seems lost on a remarkably diverse group of observers and political combatants, on the left and the right, is that there are no worthy Republican opponents to the tea parties.

Among the Republican leadership or the "conservative establishment," you will not find a single full-throated critic of the tea parties.

To borrow from an old Jim Croce song, the message out of the primaries is this: You don't tug on Superman's cape; you don't spit into the wind; you don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don't mess around with the tea parties.

By their Creator

Joseph Farah goes after the Progressive's Messiah for not recognizing the Father:

Was it an accident or slip of the tongue when Barack Obama "edited" the Declaration of Independence by dropping one word key to the understanding of who endows men with their rights?

For the last 10 days, a group of about 500 Americans have been meeting first in Miami and now on a cruise of the Caribbean to discuss the critical importance of the Declaration of Independence to a complete understanding of the unique experiment in liberty that America represents.

We've heard from Alan Keyes, William Murray, R.C. Sproul Jr., Gary DeMar, Chuck Missler and many others, who have reminded us that true comprehension of our Constitution is impossible without recognizing the underlying foundation laid by the Declaration of Independence.

It's the same message I have been delivering with "The Tea Party Manifesto," a book I wrote to promote a mission statement for the grassroots movement that offers Americans a chance to reclaim their country from those who have placed it on a path toward tyranny.

If I had any doubts that what we have been saying at our Taking America Back National Conference and the Tea Party at Sea is correct, they would have been allayed by Obama's deliberate, calculated mutilation of the Declaration of Independence this week.

In case you missed it, Obama removed the reference to the "Creator" when he quoted a portion of the Declaration at a meeting of the Congressional Hispanic Congress.

Obama said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

But the actual quotation reads: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

This was not an accident.

It was not a slip of the tongue.

It was not an oversight.

It was not an innocent mistake.

This was an attempt at deicide by Obama.

This was an effort to strip from America's national heritage a direct connection with God Almighty.

Even worse, this was Obama's way of stripping from America's consciousness the notion that liberty's underpinnings require direct accountability and responsibility to the Creator, not man-made government.

Our rights do not descend from Obama, much as he might like.

Republican Party is not ready to rule

Pat Buchanan:

Is the Republican establishment losing it?

Is the party leadership capable of uniting a governing coalition as Richard Nixon did before Watergate and Ronald Reagan resurrected in the 1980s?

Observing the hysteria and nastiness of Karl Rove and the GOP establishment at the stunning triumph of tea-party princess Christine O'Donnell, the answer is no.

This party is not ready to rule.

Consider. In its grand strategy to recapture a Senate that George W. Bush and Rove lost in 2006, the GOP Senate leadership endorsed all its own caucus members for re-election, if they chose to run, then picked out all its favorite candidates for the open and Democratic seats.

Conservatives and tea-party activists, however, had other ideas. They began to pick their own candidates. And, again and again, the Senate's chosen were rejected in favor of tea-party challengers who had the endorsement of Sarah Palin or South Carolina's Jim DeMint.

Arlen Specter was rejected by the Pennsylvania GOP and left the party. Rand Paul routed Sen. Mitch McConnell's man in Kentucky. Charlie Crist was challenged by Marco Rubio in Florida. Crist, too, departed. Sen. Bob Bennett was denied renomination in Utah. Sen. Lisa Murkowski lost her primary in Alaska to a little-known fellow named Joe Miller.

But Delaware was the stunner. Rep. Mike Castle, a former two-term governor who had been winning elections for 40 years, was a certain victor in November.

Challenger O'Donnell, however, ended all that.

Yet, though her conservative credentials are far superior to those of Castle, O'Donnell was made the object of a wilding attack by National Review and the Weekly Standard, Charles Krauthammer, who lashed out at Palin and DeMint for "irresponsbility," and Rove, who on Sean Hannity's show went postal as soon as the returns came in.

Now, on paper, O'Donnell is a far tougher sell in Delaware than is Castle. But her defeat is not certain. Not in this volatile year.

And what is the justification for the savagery of the attacks on her, from her own?

What has this woman done? Did she vote for Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court like Lindsey Graham? Did she support the Obama stimulus like Olympia Snow and Susan Collins? What did she do to deserve the trashing?

The answer is not distant.

To the Republican establishment, tea-party people are field hands. Their labors are to be recognized and rewarded, but they are to stay off the porch and not presume to sit at the master's table.

And what O'Donnell did, with her amazing victory, is to imperil that establishment's return to power. That is why these Republicans went ballistic.

O'Donnell's conservative convictions and Castle's social liberalism mean nothing to them.

They are about power and all that goes with it.

"Big Tent" Republican Party versus the Tea Party Movement

Joseph Farah:

Recently the North American editor of the BBC reviewed my new book, "The Tea Party Manifesto: A Vision for an American Rebirth" – sadly, completely missing the point.

"In a text filled with quotes from the Bible, he warns the U.S. is becoming a fascist country, and fulminates against socialism, homosexuality, abortion and, a bit weirdly, turning Native Americans into heroes," writes Mark Mardell. "It is a fairly familiar mixture: a heated, almost panicky, focus on evils that stalk the land without anything like solid policy prescriptions describing what 'taking America back' (from the voters?) might mean."

One of the major points of the book is that the tea-party movement does not need to create a laundry list of policy positions upon which it stands. Nor would it be advisable. What I offer, instead, is the suggestion of a sweeping mission statement under which every tea-party activist I have ever met would rally. In fact, it is a mission statement so broad and undeniably American in its origin that it would be difficult even for those who are wary of the tea-party movement to resist.

That vision is captured and articulated in the Declaration of Independence. I don't know how a smart guy like the North American editor of the BBC could have missed that. Maybe it brings up bad memories for the British.

The appeal of a mission statement is simple: It defines an entity, whether it's a company, a nonprofit organization or a political movement in broad terms. It purposely avoids specifics, which, of course, is where division starts to creep in.

Some have attempted to define the tea-party movement with an exclusively limited economic agenda. I argue that is the wrong approach for several reasons:

• It has been tried before and failed miserably. Remember those who sought to build a "Big Tent" Republican Party by emphasizing only fiscal conservatism? It's what nearly destroyed the GOP following Ronald Reagan's two terms as president. Ironically, it is precisely why we need the tea-party movement so desperately today.

• There has never been in the history of the world a successful freedom movement based on a materialistic agenda. A materialistic view was what led to the chaos of the French Revolution. Ever since, it has been the domain of totalitarian socialists.

• The American founders had a different view: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." That's the non-materialist, non-utilitarian worldview. It's the basis of the founders' vision of a self-governing people under God and a strictly limited constitutional government.

What I am prescribing is that the tea-party movement adopt not the agenda of politicians and 21st century activists, but the vision that resulted in the creation of America. I suggest we could do no better today – especially since we still all call ourselves Americans.

This vision allows tea-party activists to engage in "taking America back" from those who have betrayed the vision of the rule of law and the will of the people – politicians, unaccountable judges and mind-bending cultural forces.

We turn more and more power over our lives to the same people we, for good reason, trust less and less

Star Parker:

Those who dismiss or disparage tea-party candidates as ideologues really miss the point of what is driving this movement.

An ideologue is someone motivated primarily by a set of ideas and clings to them despite facts and experience.

The tea-party movement was not launched by and is not driven by theory but by a healthy sense of realism fueled by practical experience.

Consider, for instance, Gallup's annual survey of most and least trusted professions.

In the latest one published last December, rock bottom on the list was members of Congress. Fifty-five percent gave them low/very low ratings on honesty and ethics. Members of Congress beat car salesmen by four percentage points as the professionals the American public finds most ethically challenged.

It's not theory or dogma that earned members of Congress this distinction. It's experience.

So put two and two together.

Federal government spending per American household has increased more than 200 percent since the mid-1970s, and over this same period of time median household income barely increased by 25 percent. In 1977, 40 percent gave members of Congress low/very low ratings in honesty and ethics, compared with 55 percent today.

Can you think of any other place where we turn more and more power over our lives to the same people we, for good reason, trust less and less?

Reams of data have been published showing more and more government spending on education with no change in test scores and more and more government spending on poverty with no change in poverty.