Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

BILL MUEHLENBERG: "DESTROYING CULTURES: A "HOW TO" GUIDE"

Bill Muehlenberg writes

Wanna know how to destroy a culture? There are many successful means by which we can do this, but one easy way is to target the children. Get them in the schools, attack the values and beliefs of their parents (usually behind their backs) and turn them into amoral and immoral sex perverts. This is a perfect recipe for laying waste a culture.

And it is happening all the time regrettably. The West is becoming one big moral and sexual cesspool where anything goes, and our children are especially the victims. We are killing our kids with all things sleazy and sensual. We are destroying our children with all things putrid and pornographic.

My site has documented this on numerous occasions, and there is never a shortage of new examples of this. Consider just two new shockers coming out of the UK. Both involve pushing the sexual boundaries and attacking mainstream morality.       Me -  Keep reading for truly unbelievable examples of what is happening in UK schools..

"BEYOND WORDS" PODCAST ON "SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT"

Dr. Bill Campbell's interview with Francis Frangipane on Spiritual Discernment is well worth listening to.  It's about 26 minutes.

WHEN "LIFE" AND "PREGNANCY" BEGIN ARE DIFFERENT CONCEPTS

Wesley J. Smith clarifies for those confused:

The anti-science liberals are denying again that human life begins with the completion of fertilization (without getting into an arcane debate of the exact moment that process is completed).

Thomas Edsall uses his NYT column to mock that embryology truth. From, “The Republican Conception of Conception:”

Fifteen percent of the Republican presidential candidates, including Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Carla Fiorina contend life begins at conception.

So do embryology text books. As I have written here and elsewhere before, the science notes that once conception is complete, a new human individual organism has come into existence, with its own distinct genetic makeup, a determined sex, etc. Here’s just one quote from such a text:

Human development is a continuous process that begins when an oocyte (ovum) from a female is fertilized by a sperm (or spermatozoon) from a male. (p. 2); … but the embryo begins to develop as soon as the oocyte is fertilized. (p. 2); …

Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm … unites with a female gamete or oocyte … to form a single cell. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.

That’s the science. And if we are to be “pro-science,” accuracy in biology must inform our policy positions. When “life” begins is a different question from when “pregnancy” begins. Edsall notes that the government and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (as ideological as scientific) claim pregnancy begins on implantation.   [more . . .]

Ramesh Ponnuru offers additional commentary:

PROSPECTS FOR BLACK AMERICA: THE MOYNIHAN REPORT TURNS 50

Roger Clegg at National Review Online writes:

Last May, the Manhattan Institute sponsored a symposium titled, “Prospects for Black America:  The Moynihan Report Turns 50.” The various panel discussions were videotaped and are available online. I’m working my way through them and just finished watching the third one, “Restoring the Family,” which is a terrific and lively discussion among Ron Haskins, Glenn Loury, and Bob Woodson, moderated by Kay Hymowitz and introduced by Jason Riley. It’s really, really good — and you won’t be tempted to stop watching it once you start, which is a good thing, because the last question from the audience at the end is a fitting finale.

QUICK TAKES

**  Dr. Ben Carson - "the 'Black Lives Matter' Misfire"  

I grew up in neighborhoods most Americans were told to never drive through. I saw bullets, drugs and death in the same places I played tag and ball with my friends. Both of my older cousins died on the streets where I lived. I thought that was my destiny.

But my mother didn't. She changed all of that. She saved my brother and me from being killed on those streets with nothing but a library card.

My mother knew what the problems were and she shielded me and my brother from them. I can tell you she wasn't worried about Socialist senators from tiny rural states. "BlackLivesmatter" could learn from her to focus on the real sources of our hopelessness.

This is where we should march:  [more. . .]

** Jay Nordlinger:

The maker, or makers, of those Planned Parenthood videos? I think they should win every award under the conservative sun. Under the human sun, actually. They’ve done a tremendous service. Harriet Beecher Stowe, with a novel, rocked the conscience of America. These videos should do something similar, if the American conscience is open to rocking.

** Koch blasts Obama-

Charles Koch hit back at criticism of “the Koch brothers” during President Barack Obama’s energy speech in Las Vegas earlier this week, saying he was “flabbergasted” by the attack and charging that Obama made the dig as a favor to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who appeared with him.

“It’s beneath the president, the dignity of the president, to be doing that,” Koch said during a phone interview Tuesday.

**  M.B. Dougherty - The kids are not all right: The bleak future of the millennial generation

Millennials marry much later. Just 26 percent of younger millennials (18-29) are married. At that same age, 36 percent of Gen Xers, 48 percent of Baby Boomers, and 65 percent of the Silent Generation had married. And that's if millennials get married at all. Pew's research suggests that about 25 percent of those between the ages of 25 and 34 will remain unmarried. That's higher than previous generations.

JOHN LENNOX, OXFORD MATHEMATICIAN, SPEAKS AT HARVARD ON "MIRACLES: IS BELIEF IN THE SUPERNATURAL IRRATIONAL?"

Without a doubt, Dr. John Lennox's talk at Harvard remains one of my favorites; I have blogged about it before as well as other talks of his.    It's very much worthwhile to listen to the talk in its entirety and to the Q&A session at the end wherein he relates a couple of unique experiences of divine guidance as a postscript (he was asked a question) to his more intellectual address.  I post the talk again for those who might not know of John Lennox.

 

SCHOOL BAND TOLD TO STOP PERFORMING "HOW GREAT THOU ART"

Todd Starnes has the story.  The town comes up with a way to defy the federal judge's order.

Update: HotAir builds on Starnes' report and adds a video:

 Jazz Shaw of Hot Air comments further:

People often scoff at the idea of a “slippery slope” in politics, but this is probably one of the prime examples of how real the premise can be. When the courts decided to ban prayer in school it opened the door to a virtual extermination of religion on school grounds. It’s simply ludicrous to believe that there is some threat being posed by a school band playing the instrumental version of a hymn. It also reinforces the politically correct idea that, beyond freedom of religion, your freedom of speech somehow includes the idea that you are protected against hearing any speech you disagree with. If we found a school where children of other faiths were being forced to participate in a prayer to a different god than the one they worship, I’d be right on board with criticizing them. But the idea that you can never be exposed to a different religion is insane.

And while we’re on the subject, how did we wind up at the point where it simply applies to schools? The basis for that argument was that the schools were funded with taxpayer money, but wouldn’t the same rationale then be applied to any government function on all government property? How is it that the President can attend the National Prayer Breakfast every year? For that matter, when the current president was inaugurated, how is it that we could have an invocation, a benediction and the playing of the Battle Hymn of the Republic on government property? There’s a big disconnect in these rulings and this Mississippi judge is a prime symptom of what’s gone wrong.

MAIN STREAM MEDIA IGNORES PLANNED PARENTHOOD VIDEOS; GIVES OUT MARGARET SANGER AWARDS

From CBN News:

 

CBN News reports:

The mainstream network media ignored the latest video released on Planned Parenthood's practice of harvesting the body parts of aborted babies.

The latest one detailing how one technician told another worker, "Want to see something cool?" referring to a baby's heart beating while harvesting its brain.
 
Ex-StemExpress employee Holly O'Donnell saying a Planned Parenthood worker called to her: "'Hey Holly come over here I want to see something kinda cool, this is kinda neat.'

"So, I'm over here. And, the moment I see it I'm just flabbergasted," O'Donnell said. "This is the most gestated fetus and the closest thing to a baby I've seen. And, she's, 'Okay, I want to show you something.' And she has one of her instruments and she just taps the heart and it starts beating. And, I'm sitting here and I'm looking at this fetus and its heart is beating and I don't know what to think."

It's a disturbing video, yet not reported on major national news outlets..

                              * * * 

Kathryn Jean Lopez suggests the following reading:

**  Half of Americans Haven’t Seen the Planned Parenthood Videos. Here’s What They Need to Know.

**  If Planned Parenthood Goes, Where Do Women Go?

**  If Planned Parenthood Loses Government Funding, Here’s a Map of Health Clinics That Could Take Its

**  Abortion Hurts

ISIS UNDERGROUND HIGHWAY AT AMERICA'S DOORSTEP

What struck me in particular about the following report is how vulnerable the U.S. is to tunnels from Mexico that ISIS could use to penetrate and devastate the United States.  With half the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored in San Diego, the scenario is scary indeed.  Chris Mitchell, CBN Middle East Bureau Chief reports:   

Text of Chris Mitchell's report:

JERUSALEM, Israel -- During the war with Israel last summer, Hamas dug tunnels under the Israel's border to kill, kidnap, and terrorize Israelis. Now, a new thriller warns that ISIS could use those same tactics to strike America.

During the 50-day war, Hamas terrorists used an intricate series of tunnels to carry out sneak attacks. While IDF soldiers stopped those attacks, the tunnels shocked most Israelis to the core.

At the time, CBN News chronicled the scope and size of the underground maze.

A Real 'Day of the Dead'

The terror tunnels are designed to infiltrate Israeli communities close to the border with Gaza, which is about a mile away.

Some of the tunnels are more than a mile long and 60 feet deep, with multiple exits. Clearly Hamas has been planning the tactic for a long time.

The Israel Defense Forces destroyed many of the tunnels, but the frightening memory remains.

Dan Gordon, a veteran of six Israeli wars, talked about their effectiveness.

"I can't imagine anything more terrifying for the people who live there than suddenly the earth opens up. It's almost a scene out of a grade-B zombie movie, and the walking dead come out, except they're not dead," Gordon told CBN News.

"I've been a soldier now for 40 years, which is a long time, and the most terrifying thing that I've ever seen is the advent of the terrorist tunnel attacks that happened last summer," he said.

A Ripe Target

Now, a year later, Gordon, an Israeli-American, has written Day of the Dead, a thriller about those tunnels, which he says should be a wakeup call to America.

"The country that is most vulnerable to that attack is my other homeland, the United States of America -- far more vulnerable because there are terrorist tunnels that exist already," Gordon explained.

"They're called drug-smuggling tunnels, and they run from part of Mexico into California, to Arizona and to Texas," he said.

HUGH ROSS - SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE FOR GOD'S EXISTENCE

Hugh Ross, Ph.D. (astronomy/astrophysics), founder of Reasons to Believe, offers a stunning talk on science, creation, and how he came to faith and trust the Bible.  He became a believer "on his own" as a 17 year old budding scientist. He said he didn't encounter a Christian until he was 27 and at CalTech.    My one question would be to ask how he calculates probabilities.  Enjoy.

 

 

SATANIC STATUE IN DETROIT

Time magazine article here.

A little before midnight on Saturday, a crowd of around 700 gathered in an old industrial warehouse a few blocks from the Detroit River for what they’d been told was the “largest public satanic ceremony in history.” Most of them professed to be adherents of Satanism, that loosely organized squad of the occult that defines itself as a religious group. Others came simply because they were curious. . . .

They were there to publicly unveil a colossal bronze statue of Baphomet, the goat-headed wraith who, after centuries of various appropriations, is now the totem of contemporary Satanism. The pentagram, that familiar logo of both orthodox Satanists and disaffected teens, originated as a rough outline of Baphomet’s head.

The statue itself is impressive: almost nine feet tall, and weighing in at around a ton.

Eric Metaxas provides useful commentary. 

. . . Speaking of C.S. Lewis, in “The Screwtape Letters” Lewis wrote that “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.” He added that devils “are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

The people in Detroit managed to commit both errors at the same time. They denied believing in a personal devil, instead regarding Satan as a symbol of the “reconciliation of opposites, emblematic of the willingness to embrace, and even celebrate differences.” Yet at the same time they built a half-ton statue—“idol” is not too strong a word—of what they claim not to believe in and behaved in a way that brings to mind the children of Israel before the golden calf.

This is the cultural moment we’re living in: people either embracing evil and calling it good, or pretending that evil doesn’t exist at all. Oh, but evil does exist, and there is no lack of evidence for that proposition: from the slaughter houses of Planned Parenthood and ISIS, to the erection of a satanic statue in Detroit.

CAROLINE GLICK - AMERICAN JEWRY'S FATEFUL HOUR

Caroline Glick  sees situations more clearly than most.  She writes that American Jewry now stand in ominous danger of being outcasts and hounded and harassed by Obama if they stand up to Obama over the Iran deal.  Glick writes:  (my emphases)

Over the past month, Obama has demonized and criminalized opponents of his nuclear deal.

Last week at American University Obama said that his Republican opponents are the moral equivalent of “Death to America”-chanting jihadists. Obama presented deal opponents in general as warmongers who would force the US into an unnecessary war that his deal would otherwise prevent.

And, since he said that among all the nations of the world, only Israel opposes the deal, it easily follows that the Jews who oppose the deal are traitors who care more about Israel than America.

And then this week his troops let it be known that Schumer is a warmonger and a traitor. And a Jew.

THE GREATER SECURITY THREAT: ISIS OR IRAN?

Dr. Herbert I. London, president of the London Center for Policy Research and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute) says: 

An Iran with nuclear weapons or a pathway to obtain them is a far more dangerous threat than ISIS. Moreover, Iran has created an empire of sorts with capitals in Damascus, Sanna, Bagdad, and Beirut. Should Iran obtain $150 billion with the lifting of sanctions, that money could be used to bolster its interests with Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. Using surrogates, the Iranians will likely extend their interests throughout the region with the prize being Saudi oil fields in the eastern part of the country which has a regional majority of Shia residents. Should Iran control Saudi and Iraqi oil along with its own deposits, it will control two-thirds of the world’s oil supply and be in a position to dictate oil prices.

SIS is a relatively minor threat that has morphed into a formidable threat due to inaction and a hopelessly incompetent Iraqi military force. Using barbarism as a tactic, it has carved out a swath of territory in Iraq and Syria. If the U.S. were serious about launching a genuine attack against ISIS, it could be eliminated in a relatively short period.

Jospeh Puder asks:  Should Israel consider a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities?

Herbert London responds: A preemptive strike against Iran by Israel is fraught with complications, but an Iran with nuclear weapons, a delivery capacity and a motivation to destroy Israel leaves the Israeli government with very few alternatives. The choice is indeed existential. An attack will have consequences; blow back with many lives put in jeopardy. Hoping for the best, however, is not a policy since the very survival of Israel is at stake. Hence, I believe Israeli leaders must act to defend the state and its people which means it must make the difficult decision of attack. As Norman Podhoretz so eloquently put it, “fight a conventional war now or a nuclear war later.”

DONALD TRUMP ON GOD AND FORGIVENESS

 

WHOA! O'REILLY ON AMERICA'S RACE PROBLEM

Recently someone sent me the following video.  It apparently dates to August 2014, but don't let that deter you  from watching.  What O'Reilly says is timeless and incontrovertible. 

 

 

ISIS ENSHRINES A THEOLOGY OF RAPE

From the New York Times:  

Claiming the Quran’s support, the Islamic State
codifies sex slavery in conquered regions of Iraq
and Syria and uses the practice as a recruiting tool.

QADIYA, Iraq — In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted.

He bound her hands and gagged her. Then he knelt beside the bed and prostrated himself in prayer before getting on top of her.

When it was over, he knelt to pray again, bookending the rape with acts of religious devotion.

“I kept telling him it hurts — please stop,” said the girl, whose body is so small an adult could circle her waist with two hands. “He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God,” she said in an interview alongside her family in a refugee camp here, to which she escaped after 11 months of captivity.

The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution. Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped the Islamic State, as well as an examination of the group’s official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the group’s core tenets.   [more . . .]

ISLAM IN CRISIS - THE DECLINE OF ISLAM IS REAL

Dale Hurd of CBN News offers a distinctly different appraisal of Islam's future in the world compared to conventional thinking.  

 Transcript:

LONDON -- The headlines say Islam is going to be the largest religion in the world. But Islam is facing a crisis.

The terrible deeds of ISIS, done in the name of Allah and following the violent example of Mohammed, have horrified Muslims who are now questioning their faith.

Missionaries to the Islamic world say more Muslims have converted to Christianity in the last 14 years (since 9/11) than during the entire 14 centuries of Islamic history.

Secret Lives

Many keep their conversion a secret, afraid for their lives. In London, CBN News talked to Imram (no last name given to protect his identity), a British college student from a Pakistani immigrant family.

Imram left Islam after a lengthy study convinced him the Koran could not be true. Leaving Islam can be a tough road.