Podcasts about humanist manifesto

Show #2403 Show Notes: Matthew 10:22 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2010%3A22&version=KJV Ephesians 5:11 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%205%3A11&version=KJV ‘Reprove’: https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Reprove Cornell Law Professor Says Harvard is Just a Symptom: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/05/cornell-law-professor-says-harvard-is-just-symptom/ Humanist Manifesto: https://heritage.humanists.uk/humanist-manifesto-ii-1973/ Communist Goals: https://www.ethanallen.org/45_communist_goals_from_58_years_ago Psalm 7:11 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%207%3A11&version=KJV 1 Peter 4: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20peter%204&version=KJV Dave Daubenmire, […]

Show #2370 Show Notes: ‘Coup’: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coup 1 Amendment: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/ Humanist Manifesto: https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto1/ Kritarchy: https://voluntaryist.com/articles/issue-135/what-is-kritarchy/ Judges appointed: https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_judicial_appointments_by_president NGO Busted: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10236325062644434&set=a.10204413833523650 Bill Gates Pump and Dump: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10161673978704117&set=a.57404409116 Emerson Vs Board of Education of Ewing: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/330us1 The Courts Cannot […]

Dennis and Julie ponder whether it's harder to come out as gay or as conservative in 2024.  Conservatives are mischaracterized as racist and homophobic… but there is great diversity on the Right side of the aisle.  Do you know the origin of Dennis and Julie's unlikely and unique friendship?  Conservatives are mischaracterized as simple-minded religious zealots… but the Right is more intellectually formidable than the Left.  Other topics include: Jonathan Haidt's study – conservatives know liberals better than liberals know conservatives; The Humanist Manifesto; Atheism versus Belief; Dennis' question to Christopher Hitchens; Uncomfortable reality; Clarity, accuracy, and honesty are paramount; Lies are the root of evil; The writing process behind Prager U's five minute videos; The definition of prayer in Hebrew.Music: Straight to the Point c 2022Richard Friedman Music Publishing 100%Richard Friedman Writers 100%ASCAP (PRO)IPI128741568RichardFriedmanMusic.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dennis and Julie ponder whether it's harder to come out as gay or as conservative in 2024.  Conservatives are mischaracterized as racist and homophobic… but there is great diversity on the Right side of the aisle.  Do you know the origin of Dennis and Julie's unlikely and unique friendship?  Conservatives are mischaracterized as simple-minded religious zealots… but the Right is more intellectually formidable than the Left.  Other topics include: Jonathan Haidt's study – conservatives know liberals better than liberals know conservatives; The Humanist Manifesto; Atheism versus Belief; Dennis' question to Christopher Hitchens; Uncomfortable reality; Clarity, accuracy, and honesty are paramount; Lies are the root of evil; The writing process behind Prager U's five minute videos; The definition of prayer in Hebrew.Music: Straight to the Point c 2022Richard Friedman Music Publishing 100%Richard Friedman Writers 100%ASCAP (PRO)IPI128741568RichardFriedmanMusic.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If Christianity ever stops being weird, it will no longer change lives. So let's get weird.I knew that the childhood mantra of “Believe in yourself” had failed in the crucible of reality. That turned out to be a bad drug, like the brown acid that the 1960's burnouts spoke about. Work and career couldn't save me. Money couldn't either. The old trusty sidekick, liquor, was as worthless as ever now. These were all bad drugs. While I had flung beer bottles at religious people for using God as a crutch, I was leaning on various crutches, and when those crutches failed, anti-depressants became the crutch. At this point, I still had no idea that I was soul-sick far more than physically or mentally impaired. On particularly blue days, or “Black Dog” days as Winston Churchill called them, or the days when the “Noonday Demon” of acedia overtook me, I knew that something was missing. And after a few years working as an engineer, I realized that I needed to talk to a doctor. And the doctor had the cure. Then I heard the new pitch for the new drug. I needed a supplement to believe in myself. It was medicine, just like insulin. Surely a diabetic would not refuse the medicine that would save his life, so why would someone deficient in a neurotransmitter not trust that pharma solutions could save me? Here existed a scientific, peer-reviewed solution, and it came in the form of a pill that would simply re-balance the chemistry in my brain. Just eat this little dot once a day and like Dorothy I would be back in humanist Kansas. Never mind that humans had lived for tens of thousands of years without these pills - this was the only solution. The fix was merely a matter of dialing in the numbers, like getting the chemicals correct when balancing a pool PH level. It was easy! There were also techniques, from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and its cousins like RET, and there was pseudo-spiritual self-affirmation options in Buddhist meditation (heavy on the self), and then there was the budding “science” of taking LSD. There was a pill plus technical methodologies to deal. I just needed an action plan for mind and body (no soul needed). Pills are goodSo the days of anti-depressants began. In a pill came the solution, and I convinced myself after a month it “seemed to be working” since I felt “not quite as irritable.” However, today I am certain that if the doctor had given me a magical bag of potato chips in a medical looking package, and had told me to eat one a day, it would have had the same effect. Because I wasn't feeling any different. The Black Dog days still arrived and struck hard. That was when I was told that the dosage just needed to be increased. More was better…you see…I needed two magical potato chips per day, not one. This is becoming more well known as people are beginning to realize that the modern SSRI pill solution is just another version of snake oil. What I discovered after about five years is that I could not stop taking these pills, because if I stopped, I became so dizzy that I could hardly stand. Getting off the anti-depressants now felt as hard as quitting tobacco had been. In the early years of taking anti-depressants, I was still drinking, which in hindsight is insane to me. But after I did quit drinking (a topic I covered at great length in the initial series of this site), I continued with the pills. After a few years of sobriety, I tried to stop taking the pills, and the dizziness gave me such fear that I worried about slipping into some suicidal despair, so I stayed on the pills. This certainly works in favor of the pharmaceutical companies. I continued on the pills, sober, believing that I needed them. Life without liquor started by asking God for help. Getting back to the basics of belief in God set me free from drinking, to my utter and complete surprise. The only way that I ever got sober was by doing the exact opposite of everything that I had learned in school. “Believe in myself” turned out to be the very thing that was destroying my liver and overall health. How many hundreds of times did I try to will myself to stay sober and it failed? Then suddenly, by simply asking God for strength and direction, I was making it through a day, and another day, then a week, then a month. But then I stopped praying for a long spell, not able to connect the dots. I stayed sober for a year before falling into the usual trap. “I got this now. I believe in myself.” Yes, that was the road back to ruin. I started with non-alcoholic beer then switched to regular beer and a year or two later I was worse off than before. Then a night in jail and the threat of more rehab got me back to the basics, of the need for God. But this time I knew that I needed God more than he needed me. But I still didn't need him that much. I had my pills.The pills carried me through some more years, but I was back in motion. In addition, fitness became an interest and continued until I'd run some eight or ten marathons and did an Ironman. I thought I'd fended off the emptiness forever. But it was after the Ironman in 2019 that it struck back, and harder than ever before. The depression arrived and I knew that I had cured nothing. I could not save myself. I could not manufacture self-esteem. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy was a parlor game. The pills were doing nothing. The fitness had maxed out. I was still on the treadmill of self-esteem. Not even a long period of sobriety was a cure. There had to be something more. Body and SoulThat is when I understood the soul. For the first time in my life, I realized that we are body and soul. I had inklings about it, in times when I'd felt I'd lost something. In the deadness of my heart, I had always known something was off, ever since middle school. The comment from Jesus: “Let the dead bury their dead” always shocked me. But I knew what he meant. I knew that he meant the people who never came to know Him. Because until I learned to kneel and pray and ask for God's forgiveness, I never knew what redemptive suffering meant, and I never knew why he had to go through the cross to be resurrected. Even this process took time because I was so blind to my spiritual state, that I couldn't even see my sins and the wreckage of my life that had piled up in the wake of my jetboat named “Believe in yourself”. The next four years began a long process of spiritual awakening, in a way that I could never have understood or predicted. Even as it happened, I tried to resist it. Sneaking into back rows of churches, I was there for reasons I could hardly fathom. But I knew there was something needed, something desired. A Sunday morning watching Netflix no longer satisfied me. It had never satisfied me, I was just finally becoming aware of it. I started saying “Yes” to prayer, to fellowship, to volunteering, and to meet people who believed, and I mean really, actually believed in a spiritual life. The supernatural became revealed again through the witness of others, and I too started to tear down the walls of my materialism and unbelief. The propaganda of the Humanist Manifesto that had been drilled into my head scattered. The false foundations of my public school and media indoctrination started to erode and crumble like sand. And because the believers were living differently from everyone I had chosen to spend time with since middle school, I had to “come and see” what they were doing. It was so different. Their lives were different. Their thoughts are different. Most of them had less money than me, but they had something that I could never get. They had a sense of rest, of peace. And as I got to know them, I learned something interesting. They all spent time in prayer, every day. None were on anti-depressants. Not one of them “believed in themselves.” No, that was crazy. No, instead they all believed in God, and the Resurrection of Christ. I knew many other people who seemed to be living without God, but they were taking pills, or smoking weed, or drinking, or chasing a dollar, or obsessing with sex. But here was something different. Here was a free option, called grace. No pills needed. Then I read G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy and the second chapter confirmed what I had known by experience but could never articulate. This is a book about the concept of “Believe in yourself.” The second chapter is called “The Maniac,” and the maniac is the man who “believes in himself.” Chesterton says, “Believing utterly in one's self is a hysterical and superstitious belief.” I straightened up in my reading chair, as so much of the era from the 1970s to 2020s that I had lived within began to make much more sense. When I was born, the humanists had overrun public schooling in precisely that era (and even ruled the progressive Churches), and the first rule of the humanists, in their manifesto, was that “Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.” Thus it was no wonder that my teachers had ruled out God as existing, as a living entity. My few hours a year in faith formation were trampled over and cast out at the first difficult question I raised about God. My understanding of anything about Catholicism or faith was a house of cards. To make matters worse, I had only attended Masses from the post-Vatican II, where it was more guitar and modern “hymns” than reverent prayer and silence. I am not joking when I tell this: the first time I saw a High Latin Mass, I thought I was on another planet. I had no idea what was happening, but I knew that every Mass I had attended as a kid was lacking seriousness. I didn't even receive Communion that day because I didn't know what the altar rail was for, or why people were kneeling to receive the Eucharist. Probably best I didn't, since I still hadn't understood the need for Confession and being in a state of Grace before receiving the Eucharist yet. I realized after this process had completed, after I had flushed my anti-depressants, that I had to knock down about ten walls of worldly indoctrination and self-deception that had been erected over thirty years, all the way back to Sesame Street with its early onset self-esteem program of indoctrination…and maybe even Tom and Jerry as I loved watching them beat the hell out of each other and figured that both and Tom and Jerry believed in themselves.First, I had to accept that God may exist. This meant overcoming the dogmas of academia, that had coached me into the negative position, and until I found Aquinas and Augustine and Pascal and Robert Barron, I had never heard of the compelling arguments for the affirmative. But it wasn't an argument that made me believe that God may exist - it was the first time I tried prayer and was able to not drink. And this will forever be perhaps the strangest education of my life. For nothing had worked before - no amount of knowledge, no technique, no bargaining, no rewards. Later, I used prayer to discontinue looking at any smut on my computer or phone, and lo and behold, repeatedly kneeling and asking God for help, once again, chased away the demon. This had a profound effect on me, as I realized that prayer did something strange, and it was real. Then there was politics, which is always the top idol in America. You can't bring up a news story in most circles without hitting an electric wire related to politics. The issue of abortion or prayer in schools was a trigger for me, as I had been coached well enough in school that liberty and freedom only meant doing whatever one wished. Luckily, over the years I had lived in neighborhoods with people of both parties, so I had close friends of both the left and the right, and I still do, and this is because I have the gift of knowing when to shut the hell up. My 10th-grade biology teacher once paid me a great compliment, telling me that I was a nuisance in class, but I knew when to quit. Now, for some, that may not sound like a compliment, but to me, it meant I had the slightest sense of knowing when to stop acting like an idiot. Perhaps being from Minnesota had something to do with it because we hold back our feelings to avoid offending others - or we did at one time. I think that has passed as greater America has infected the state through social media. However, when I began to believe in God, I began to set aside certain political issues, such as that unborn babies are “just a clump of cells,” which never made a lot of sense to me anyway. The problem was that if I had a soul, then so did everyone else. If I had a soul, so did my conservative and liberal neighbors - they both did. And if I had a soul, so did babies, and if babies had a soul, so did humans who had not yet popped out of the womb. Plus I had my own children and they were the greatest gift, along with my wife, that I could have ever asked for, and I hadn't asked for, yet had been given them. And all of these things began to work like a degreasing rust remover on my static and crusty ideas. The bolted-on beliefs from college and my twenties started looking less solid. That wall of politics may have been as thick as the wall of “Does God exist?”Then there was the approval of the world - a very thick wall - because to believe in God was to reject the secularization thesis that reigned in the last fifty years. Belief in God was a vestige of less sophisticated times. It was like the appendix on the body, or goosebumps - they were leftovers from a more primitive age. Joseph Campbell and many others assured us that Christianity was just like every other religion, every other myth, with just a wrinkle of difference here, a nuance there. I felt like the world was nudging me along, saying, “Nothing to see here, folks: Star Wars is sufficient for your spiritual needs.” Except it wasn't (and Disney's takeover of it has certainly proven that out as it degrades with every new release).To be Catholic, or really any non-”progressive” Christian, was to be a modern freak. It was not approved of by the educated and cool people. I liked reading Reddit, which was like the atheist training ground of the internet. On Reddit people could be anonymous and bash the church openly, and all of the veiled arguments against Christianity in the media and college were unleashed in their full anger online. Oh, and Islam was the true religion of peace - all of Christian history was to blame for every injustice in the modern world. No, I believed that. In hindsight, it's amazing how far your false teaching can take you, and it's no wonder to me now that the books of the Church Fathers are swept under a rug. To read Augustine's Confessions, or Origen's First Principles, or the story of the martyrs of Lyon, or hear about the Battle of Tours and the Battle of Lepanto, or read of the martyrs like St. Lawrence and St. Agnes, or to see the early church in the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch - all of this is more thrilling than any roller coaster at Six Flags. As I started to read the Gospels and read the writings of the Church Fathers and listen to Bishop Barron, as well as the Lord of Spirits podcast, Tim Keller, Father Mike Schmitz, and more - I knew that I had not been told anything about the history of Christianity. The education system, from kindergarten to college, had hidden a trove of books from us. Purposefully it had steered me away from millennia of wisdom. All spiritual things were kept away, all of the things that held Christendom together. Even the dichotomies were false ones: I had only ever heard of nature vs. nurture, as if all problems were merely questions of genetics or environment. As if only those two things could be the cause of human sin. They walled off “The Fall” as a non-possibility, and in walling it off proved in the 20th century experiments of communism, fascism, and liberalism that nature vs. nurture did not account for all problems. The longer you look into the abyss, the more you know The Fall happened. But the education system blamed other things. Never was it the world, the flesh, and the devil that prompted us to sin. Never was it the idea of concupiscence, a word that I didn't learn until my late thirties. Worse, there was a false war over faith vs. reason, and until digging deeply I learned that not only was this an invention of the Enlightenment, but the people beating the drum of that war were standing on the shoulders of the giants of faith who used their reason to discover the wonders of the natural world while still having full faith in God. There was no conflict between faith and reason. The fundamentalists and atheists may have had some odd war over those two things, but Catholics did not. The wisdom of the Saints was kept like dry goods in storage. But the great thing about it is that just when all the bad movies and boring bestsellers had lost their flair, I stumbled onto St. Augustine, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. John Damascene and realized that there is absolute dynamite in the word of God and the history of the church. I remember reading The Imitation of Christ on an airplane and thinking, “I should hide the cover or these people will think I'm a crazy Christian.” That was an odd thought. In fact, I now know who put that thought in my head. I had never once thought that I should “hide the cover” when I was reading Ovid or Virgil on a plane. I never thought that when reading Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens. And so it occurred to me that the real rebel today is the one who reads The Imitation of Christ. The only books I was embarrassed to be seen with were the ones that felt like they inverted the whole world that I had come to accept. And the fact that invasive thoughts were suggesting that I stop reading it or hide it hinted to me that the nature of thoughts may not be purely material things. After all, thoughts are only in the intellect, and angels are pure intellect - as are demons. Oddly enough, this open reading of books written by early Christians felt like an act of revolt against the world. As a child of the 1980s and 1990s, I tend to like a revolt now and then, but this was the first revolt against the world instead of God. Now I was repenting, turning back. I think when we 90s kids were drinking like fish and head-banging, we were only doing so because we had never seen beauty or truth, never heard it, never understood it, never encountered it. We were raised with ugly buildings, ugly art, and ugly ideology. Given the choice today between listening to Metallica's “Master of Puppets” or “Jesu, Salvator Mundi” from the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles - ten out of ten times, I choose the nuns. (Sorry, Hetfield, you've been replaced. Those women need no distortion pedal or even guitars to outdo you. Thanks for all the metal, but I'm all good now.) Punk is done, rock is dulled: beauty, truth, and goodness is new again. Why? Because God makes all things new. Many of us who grew up in the late 20th century and early 21st century have never seen or heard such things. Irreverent Masses and the pop music hymns are all we were shown. We are so accustomed to ugliness that we don't even know it until we start digging in the past to see what “The Enlightenment” tried to bury. There is much more out there than the material world. There is new life in Christ. Life is not just biological or psychological, it is spiritual, it is Sacramental. “Something shook out of me”After I started seeking God, which came in incremental steps, there were two days when the world of ghosts and spirits became real to me in ways that I cannot account for. The first was an out-of-body experience I had in a doctor's office, when I was being told something and could no longer hear the doctor. For a brief period, I felt as if floating in the room, or absent from my body. This may have lasted only ten seconds, but in those ten seconds, I caught a glimpse of a reality outside of the body. Nothing dramatic happened, I just felt a separation from my body and recognized that the soul can live outside of the flesh. This made apparent the need for change, for the animating, the soul, seemed to be separating for the sole purpose of telling me, “Here I am. This is the self you thought was you. This is your soul, and your body is down there. You need to acknowledge me.” This startling experience rocked various assumptions I had about the material world. Already I had known that through prayer, somehow, someway, I could resist temptations like alcohol that otherwise drove me to madness, that I could never stop on my own. But the second experience showed me that the concept of possession is real. Again, I am at a loss for an explanation for this, but the day this happened is the day that I began to read the Bible and see it completely differently. I was at home. Because I had been learning about God and catching up on reading the books I had never been exposed to, I took a moment to watch a show about Catholicism, called Symbolon. Now, Edward Sri is not a speaker or teacher that I am drawn to, but it is he who changed my life by merely speaking words - not even to me, but in a recording - and what he said caused something to leave my body. Again, this is too strange for words, and whatever I make of it here, will fail to tell the ghostly nature of what occurred. I've written about this before but didn't mention the “shaking out” that happened with it. Something left my body, or my soul, or both. It was a word that changed me. Some say that books don't change people; paragraphs do. But for me, it was a single word that opened up the scripture. The word “literarily.” Edward Sri said there is a difference between reading the Bible “literally” and “literarily.” The literal was important, but the spiritual reading I had been ignoring. Reading the Word of God was more than a literal or literary exercise, but somehow the word literary awakened me to understanding that there was a literal and a spiritual way to read. Better still, within the spiritual sense were the moral, allegorical, and the Big Picture (of how it related to Jesus) senses. This was a moment of St. Anselm's “faith seeking understanding,” as the literal and spiritual senses of scripture suddenly flowered. I realized reading the Bible was not an academic exercise, it was a living encounter with the Word of God.It made all the difference in the world to me. When I heard that, something made my ears perk up. Edward Sri had only said this:The Catholic approach to Scripture is different from the fundamentalist view, which reads Scripture in a literalistic way. To discern the truth God put in Scripture, we must interpret the Bible literarily, remembering that God speaks to us in a human way, through the human writers of Scripture. That means that we examine the context and intent of the author for any given passage.-From Symbolon (session 3)This marked the death of fundamentalism, from both sides. The pure materialist science perspective was gone. Any creeping “faith alone” or fundamentalist Protestant reading was gone, too. The four senses of scripture roared from the book. I guess it like how LSD users describe their imaginary worlds coming to life when the hallucinations begin. But I wasn't using LSD. This was a stone sober revelation. This was an encounter. This was the Holy Spirit. I had rejected it for so long, the unforgivable sin, and somehow I now let it in. Or rather, I didn't do anything - God did something. How do I know that this moment in time changed something in me? Because I felt it. And because I've seen it happen to others. In AA meetings you will often hear someone say, “I felt something lifted off of me.” Whenever I hear this, I know that God is working miracles in this world just as he was when Jesus walked the earth, or when Moses heard God thunder on the mountain, or when a dazed Abraham made his covenant with God. There is another saying in AA, and it is, “Don't stop coming until the miracle happens.” Newbies don't know what that means and often find it confusing, if not irritating. But something happens and it cannot be explained in purely rational terms. Something happened. Something strange. Something wonderful.Years ago, when I knew the time to drink was nearing, I always felt a tingle in my forearms. It was like a creepy, crawly feeling - like a temptation or urge or compulsion. There was a sense of a force approaching that could not be satisfied. On that day when something happened, I had been sober for four years at this point, so the writhing feeling rarely ever happened. I was past that. But I was still white-knuckling life on many days. Some days I still live that way. But when I heard the words about how to read the Bible, my hands shook. It was not like an excess caffeine shake, nor was it like a nervous shaking, nor was it like a hunger shake, nor was it like the natural tremor that I have in my hands. Something shook out of my hands, something invisible. This was a violent shake. The shaking lasted perhaps one second. But when it happened, I said, “Yes, that's it.” And I knew. I knew then and there that the reason I had been unable to read the Bible was because I had blinders on from Protestant fundamentalists and atheist scientists who had presented a false dichotomy. There was no war between faith and reason. There was another invisible realm beyond nature vs. nurture. There was a way to read Genesis that made sense. There was a way to know Christ as the eternally begotten Son of God, fully human and fully divine. The world and scripture opened up, spiritual and physical. When it shook out of me I knew what the demoniacs had felt in the Gospels, what Mary Magdalene had felt. Further, I knew what Jesus meant when he said that we must ask, seek, and knock and God will answer, because even though I didn't know what was drawing me, I was no longer seeking myself, I was seeking God. This was a casting out. The shaking that occurred that day altered the course of my life. Many little walls had to come down before that, but that day did something that no book or life experience could ever do. Were it not for the shaking out of something from my forearms and hands, no senses would have caught the departure of this presence that had been over me. Suddenly I could say, “Something was lifted off of me,” but for me it was, “Something shook out of me.” And it was that day that I knew: I no longer needed anti-depressants. I needed prayer, fellowship, scripture, and the Sacraments. I needed God, in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I still needed “me” because I knew that I was made for God, and my heart had been restless until it rested in Him. But I also knew that I needed Reconciliation and the Eucharist far more than Lexapro or Wellbutrin. I knew that every misguided search and difficulty had been leading me to that moment. And after that, the moments kept coming where I saw more clearly, such as when I first attended a High Mass in Latin, where I saw how powerful liturgy could be, or when I continued to meet people of faith, or when I kneeled to pray, or read spiritual books, or volunteered for things that I didn't necessarily like to do. A few weeks after that day when “something shook out of me,” I dumped the last of the pills down the toilet. Whatever had shaken out of me seemed to stir the Holy Spirit in me. I felt as if the Baptismal and Confirmation graces were set free. Whatever had been “over me” had departed, and I knew it. And I knew how to keep it that way, through the name of Christ, through prayer and obedience, submission to God. Not through effort, but by surrender. The old “surrender to win” attitude worked. The cure had been to unlearn all that I had ever learned, because once I stopped believing in myself, I believed in God. I knew that the devil was real, and he certainly believed in himself. I knew that sin was real and it was some relative wishy-washy opinion. No longer was I on top. I was in the lowest place, because I knew that spiritually I had long been a sitting duck when I thought I knew more that spirits of pure intellect. No longer did my ideas come first, but I submitted to the teachings of the Church. These rules were not for oppressing but for freedom, the right kind of freedom. Most of all, I knew Who was greater than both the devil and myself. In a great mystery, our trials and tribulations are permitted, because they allow growth to happen. But there is no growth without struggle, and action and humility must be settled into a union. Scripture is alive. God is alive. He is risen. These are all mysteries to embrace. “Surrender to win” must be the way, as the Lord showed us. In the strangest story of all, God became man, was crucified, died, and rose again. At long last, I am alive and no longer looking for the answer in myself, because I no longer believe in myself. I believe in God. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit whydidpetersink.substack.com

Shukri reflects on the values of Humanism as he discusses David Brooks article: A Humanist Manifesto. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/classxpodcast/message

Welcome to our exploration of the fascinating world of humanism and secularism, and their profound influence on society. We will look at the history of humanism and secularism, from Auguste Comte to the Humanist Manifesto, and the International Humanist and Ethical Union. We will also discuss the challenges faced by humanism and the recognition of secular humanism as a valid belief system. Join us on this journey to discover the power of humanism and secularism. source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism

Show #1961 Links from this broadcast: Survival 401k: https://survival401k.com/ This week’s Brighteon show: https://coachdavelive.tv/w/6KhGhZfi49ma9mZfuUWCuo 2022 Supreme Court Cases: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/06/21/us/major-supreme-court-cases-2022.html Humanist Manifesto: https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto1/ How long is a generation? https://www.joincake.com/blog/how-long-is-a-generation/ What You’re Getting Wrong about the […]

The “born this way” argument doesn't help you to resolve anything but just affirms your problem. If your “nature” is to drink or look at dirty websites, then that makes you helpless in combating it. If there is no stopping or altering this behavior because you were born a certain way, then you either accept the problem as final or pursue a science-based solution, like pharmaceuticals or a technique, to deal with the issue. What you will not try, if this is your worldview, is prayer or divine assistance. Why not? Because prayer appeals to magical nonsense that you don't believe in, and to engage in such an act would be admitting that a spiritual realm may exist, which is for gullible simpletons. I know this feeling well. The denial of the spirit or soul actually blocks you from accessing a treasure of knowledge that the mind and heart are capable of reaching, but not if you don't believe it. If we come to believe in the soul, or in something beyond ourselves, we open up a new possibility, and we can access something that hardly makes sense. In that worldview, you can have both free-will and rational thought and faith in mysteries, because in that worldview you are allowed the full range of mind, body, and soul. It's like a buy-one-get-two-free offer. If you allow belief in the soul or God, you automatically receive the other. If you allow an eternal soul, it can commune with a God who knows all outcomes. But the key twist here is that while God knows all the outcomes, we do not. We still have to make decisions here. This is an incredibly weird thing about human beings. To believe or not to believe makes a world of difference in how you live, and this is why the battleground for indoctrination spends so much time on this spiritual space, denying it or confirming it. The whole reason the various religions and “varieties of religious experience” exist is because we can access a kind of knowledge that science cannot explain, and never will explain. Spirits cannot be put into beakers or centrifuges or equations, so scientific papers about spirits cannot be submitted to journals for peer review without the submitting author sounding like a lunatic to other scientists. Any undergraduate student knows that science cannot co-mingle with any kind of mysticism. But mysticism can co-mingle with science. You can study the brain all you want and still retain mysticism, because science will help explain the physical processes and properties of what happens in the neurons during thought, but will never explain where thoughts come from, or what truly happens in prayer. No matter how many CAT Scans are done or electrodes placed on the forehead, this spirit world is impenetrable by nature, because it is not part of nature. Supernatural means beyond nature. Thus, whether thoughts are generated or received is answered by which side of this fence you sit upon. If spirits do not exist, then you internally create your thoughts. If spirits do exist, then your thoughts can be created externally. For the most part, the idea of thoughts being created in you can be proven, while the idea of yourself creating thoughts cannot be proven. Suggestion is a simple way to illustrate this. The power of suggestion is well-known by parents guiding children, or teachers guiding students, or salespeople working leads. One example of this is a salesperson planting a high price in your thoughts and then offering a discount shortly thereafter. Planting the high price first in the mind makes the second price after the discount believe you are getting a good deal, even though the salesperson was targeting the discount price the whole time. Another example is the loss leader, where a free item, say a box of delicious Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, is offered to get you to spend much more on a whole shopping cart full of other items. In both cases, the idea of saving money is planted in your brain, which brings about the action of commerce. Whether this planting of thoughts is done by a salesperson or by an advertisement doesn't really matter, because you receive these thought from external sources, via the portal of the ears or the eyes, and the decision is made in your head and heart on whether to buy or ignore the thought. This same power of suggestion happens continually in our day, in every waking hour, as you cannot drive down a highway without a bombardment of messaging and offerings from road signs, from billboards, from businesses, from your radio, from bumper stickers, and even from other drivers. Driving from home to work will result in hundreds of planted thoughts which you either choose to allow or reject. This sorting is so common that we do it unconsciously and in rapid succession. But we do not conjure the idea of a billboard. We receive an image through sight, and that image enters our mind. Then we have to determine what to do with the image, and quickly decide: What does a personal injury attorney have to do with me? Do I need a Coors Light? Do I like the candidate on that bumper sticker? Did that person just cut me off? Some images turn into sticky thoughts while others are discarded, and some that we think are discarded come back later, which is what the Coors Light company and attorneys are counting on. They are planting seeds for when the time is right, when thirst arrives or that fender bender happens. Planting “thought seeds” is the entire point of advertising so that when desire or need is perceived, you load the image from storage for re-processing. What's interesting about all of this is that you don't create these images, they are created in you by external inputs. The thought of a lawyer or a beer is just like any other thought, and just like advertisers and salespeople, ideologies and religions use the same power of suggestion to attract believers by telling and selling messages that mostly come through the ears and eyes. Jesus even speaks of a mustard seed as a metaphor for planting faith in minds, which is quite a different thought than planting seeds to sell beer or acquire clients, because the mustard seed grows into something glorious. The beer will get you drunk and the lawyer may get you rich. Faith, on the other hand, will likely make you sober and it certainly won't make you rich, yet it somehow appeals to billions of us. (Quick reminder here: I loathe the Prosperity Gospel.)This concept of where your thoughts come from is fundamental to understanding how your “personal” set of beliefs came into formation, as the formation did not come from yourself but from various influences, like teachers, parents, writers, coaches, actors, celebrities, pastors, preachers, siblings, friends, salespeople, admirers, heroes, and advertisers. Then there is the greatest source of modern thought planting: shows, books, billboards, ads, commercials, songs, podcasts, news, blogs, videos, and video games. All the things that come through screens present thoughts and at a far more rapid rate than say, looking at a tree, although a tree may provide much deeper and more meaningful thoughts. Examining even a single blade of grass may take you to far broader and deeper thoughts than anything on your phone, because the grass is simple, true, and real. The thoughts you hold are not as “personal” as you think, but is rather a confluence of thoughts received from your experiences, and from sounds poured into your ears, and from images painted before your eyes. These can be from natural sources in the world or from artificial sources on screens. Obviously, smell, touch, and taste factor in as well, but all of these feed thoughts to our minds. We don't create the thoughts ourselves. What we think of as thoughts generated from within are actually received from outside. We filter and interpret them, but we don't generate thoughts ourselves. This is where you can get to the high-minded places of the idea of Platonic forms or meditation or transcendentalism or the Holy Spirit or bad spirits. Since this could be a rabbit-hole that can never be fully explored, I'm going to steer away from it and focus on the idea that thoughts are either received or generated, and I am of the belief that they are received. Although our conscience somehow knows right and wrong, we do begin life as a mostly blank slate, like an empty apartment, where outside influences move a lot of furniture and knick-knacks into the space between our ears. Eventually, every few years or so, we have to clean house because it starts looking like an episode of Hoarders. Confusion reigns when conflicting doctrines and thoughts co-exist, to the point of it being a fire hazard. When you reach this point, you have to throw out certain “junk” thoughts and what you decide is junk are the thoughts that you were indoctrinated to dislike. They are the thoughts that go against what you were successfully indoctrinated into accepting. However, there are times along the path of life where you will look at the furniture you kept in the apartment and realize that you kept the wrong things, and that is when a potential flip of accepted doctrines can happen. This is one of the key elements that separates the various doctrines, and I use the word doctrine because to be indoctrinated there must be specific doctrines that are taught to you. For some doctrines, you must accept that thoughts are generated from within, and that there are no such thing as spirits. To believe these doctrines, you have to deny all things spiritual. This is a requirement, but moving all of the spiritual furniture out of the apartment is very difficult to do, if not impossible, so the doctrines that require spiritual denial must go to great efforts in order to stifle it. Some of this furniture is permanent, or can't fit through the doorway, so it has to stay in the apartment. It can only be removed if the apartment is destroyed. Because of this, indoctrination processes require covering this spiritual furniture up by burying it under piles of dirty laundry or using stacks of books to make it less obvious. My post-high school set of beliefs aligned incredibly well to the tenets of the Humanist Manifesto. This was the set of beliefs adopted by many people involved in education strategy of the 20th century, most notably, John Dewey, the philosopher who spent a lifetime writing about how to do a takedown of religion through the education system and replace it with secular humanism. “In the course of a long career, Dewey practically reinvented the American system of education from the bottom up.” (from Atheism for Dummies) To understand that I was indeed indoctrinated was a difficult thing to realize and even admit. But then that's the idea of indoctrination; the intention is to perform a total eclipse of the mind so that you don't realize that it's happening. While I was under the impression that I grew up with faith, I was actively being conditioned to recoil at all things religious and see God as something oppressive that I needed to shake off. The soul itself was excused from my worldview. Since ghosts were not real, neither was the soul. This conclusion was arrived at by design. The system was guiding me to this end. This isn't even hidden from us, although if the voting public actually knew about it, they would have objected and never voted for such a scheme. Those who fought against it were mocked and set aside as crackpots. But the plan was exactly to kill off God from public and private life, and as far back as the 1930s this was openly mentioned as part of the plan. Charles Francis Potter said, “Education is the most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday Schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching.” (from Humanism: A New Religion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930), p. 128.)The deck was stacked, and the funny thing is that many of us who were indoctrinated toward humanism, now point back at religion and that one hour a week we spent learning about Jesus as the malicious indoctrination program. In other words, this is very well-done indoctrination because we blame what did not successfully indoctrinate us as the thing that indoctrinated us. It's so rich in irony I can hardly stand it. But until the scales fall from you eyes, you can't see this. The bait-and-switch is performed on children and parents in an underhanded way, so that neither parent nor child realizes it has happened, and you blame the lamb as the lion. We blame the Church for an indoctrination that never even happened. This is also why so many fallen away Catholics have absolutely no idea what Catholicism even is, let alone teaches. But you will hear people blaming the Church for all of their adult maladies and mental issues. Cradle Catholics have long been considered clueless by converts to the faith, and we are. I was living proof. Most of us just get through Baptism, Reconciliation, First Communion, and Confirmation, and know next to nothing, especially in terms of doctrine, and head for the exits. That is not successful indoctrination. It's the opposite. How you live your life is how you are indoctrinated. You can find out easily. Just compare whether you are living your life more closely to the Ten Commandments or to the Fifteen Principles of the Humanist Manifesto. I would be willing to bet that if you are an American living today, and you honestly examine your conscience, you cannot get through the first three commandments. However, I bet you can nod blindly along through all of the Humanist principles because that is the dogma you actually live by. That is how we live, as we have been indoctrinated to live. The greatest bait and switch is how we came to blame the Church and parents for indoctrinating us when most fallen away Catholics had no concept of anything the Church stood for or against, but we were quick to name our “Catholic Guilt” as the cause of our depression and self-hatred, even though it was manufactured. Anyone that uses the phrase “Catholic Guilt” is guilty of never taking time to read the Catechism to realize that this is a concept that never had existed for two thousand years, but is rather the idea of a campaign to shudder the church as the enemy of the state. I challenge anyone to read the Catechism and find that idea. The label of Catholic Guilt is a lazy way to anoint oneself as a victim, and it is a direct outcome of brainwashing by the media and the public school system, not of the Church itself. Today, as always, the biggest threat to worldly power is Jesus Christ, as it was then, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, until He comes again. Now when I hear someone mention how they hate organized religion, I nod along because I was once programmed that way, in that same headspace of humanist indoctrination. The fact that I had any knowledge of the Bible is actually quite amazing given I was growing up in a Christian-in-name-only nation and taking part in the humanist public school curriculum of the 1980s and 1990s. The reality is that aside from my occasional experience of witnessing a devout person in active prayer at church, I had never lived a single day in a truly Christian culture. Nor had most Americans, as we had been nudged along a path to atheism, through sports and news and money and self-worship, while keeping God on our lips with no understanding of the word. We were craftily spun around to face away from God but taught to keep saying the word God. This explains the intense confusion in people today. We are trying to reconcile two worldviews that cannot be reconciled, ever. This is like fire and water trying to repeatedly burn and douse the same material over and over. You either have to pick one or the other, because to try and balance both is insane. What we do then, to maintain sanity, is to choose whatever suits our wants and desires at the time, and only turn to God when he will seem to satisfy our needs. Even then we pray for our will to be done, not God's will to be done. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.whydidpetersink.com

The Despair of Atheism And the Hope of Christianity      As we grow and develop mentally, we develop a worldview, which is a biased perspective on life. A worldview is a mental framework of beliefs that guide our understanding of what is. It's the assumptions we employ to help us make sense of the world, ourselves and our experiences. Early in life—when our perception of the world is being shaped—we are influenced by the worldviews of family, friends, and surrounding culture. As we grow older, we are confronted with different and opposing worldviews via religious and educational institutions, literature, movies, music and art. At some point in our development—it's different for each person—we choose what we believe and why. Our worldview is important because it's the basis for our values which influence our relationships, money habits, social and political decisions, and everything we say and do. At its core, there are basically two worldviews a person can have. Either one is a theist or an atheist. Choices have consequences, and the worldview we adopt has far reaching ramifications. The biblical worldview offers value, purpose, and hope. The atheistic worldview—when followed to its logical conclusion—leads to a meaningless and purposeless life that eventuates in despair.      The atheist's worldview denies the existence of God and believes the universe and earth happened by a chance explosion billions of years ago. Rather than intelligent design, he believes in unintelligent chaos, that the earth, with all its complexity of life, is merely the product of accidental evolutionary processes over millions of years. His worldview believes everything is merely the product of matter, motion, time and chance; that we are the accidental collection of molecules; that we are nothing more than evolving bags of protoplasm who happen to be able to think, feel, and act. The conclusion is that we came from nothing significant, that we are nothing significant, and we go to nothing significant. Ultimately, there's no reason for us to exist, and no given purpose to assign meaning to our lives. We are a zero. Some have thought through the logical implications of their atheism and understand this well. Mark Twain wrote: "A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle for bread; they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other. Age creeps upon them; infirmities follow; shames and humiliations bring down their prides and their vanities. Those they love are taken from them and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. The burden of pain, care, misery, grows heavier year by year. At length ambition is dead; pride is dead; vanity is dead; longing for release is in their place. It comes at last – the only unpoisoned gift ever had for them – and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence; where they achieved nothing; where they were a mistake and a failure and a foolishness; where they have left no sign that they have existed – a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever. Then another myriad takes their place and copies all they did and goes along the same profitless road and vanishes as they vanished – to make room for another and another and a million other myriads to follow the same arid path through the same desert and accomplish what the first myriad and all the myriads that came after it accomplished - nothing!"[1] And Bertrand Russell wrote: "Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hope and fears, his loves and beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruin – all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy that rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built [bold added for emphasis]."[2]      No God means we live in a purely materialistic universe. Logically, materialism leads to nihilism which teaches that life is meaningless. If there is no God, then each of us are nothing more than the accidental collection of molecules. All our thoughts, desires, passions and actions can be reduced to electrochemical impulses in the brain and body. We are nothing more than a biochemical machine in an accidental universe, and when we die, our biological life is consumed by the material universe from which we came. But this leaves us in a bad place, for we instinctively search for meaning and purpose, to understand the value of our lives and actions. This tension leads to a sense of anxiety, what the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, called angst. Angst and fear are different, for fear has a direct object, whereas angst is that innate and unending sense of anxiety or dread one lives with and cannot shake. The French Existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre understood this worldview and the despair connected with it. Sartre proposed that individual purpose could be obtained by the exercise our wills, as we choose to act, even if the act is absurd. Francis Schaeffer wrote: "[Sartre] held that in the area of reason everything is absurd, but nonetheless a person can authenticate himself by an act of the will; everyone should abandon the pose of spectator and act in a purposeless world. But because, as Sartre saw it, reason is separated from this authenticating, the will can act in any direction. On the basis of his teaching, you could authenticate yourself either by helping a poor old lady along the road at night or by speeding up your auto and running her down. Reason is not involved, and nothing can show you the direction which your will should take."[3]      I would argue that most atheists really don't want to talk about the logical conclusion of their position, and choose to go about their daily lives ignoring the issue altogether, as it's too painful to consider. This is why Sartre abandoned reason and advocated that we seek for meaning in the choices we make, even if those choices are irrational. Aldous Huxley proposed using psychedelic drugs with the idea that one might be able to find truth and meaning inside his own head. Schaeffer states, “He held this view up to the time of his death. He made his wife promise to give him LSD when he was ready to die so that he would die in the midst of a trip. All that was left for Aldous Huxley and those who followed him was truth inside a person's own head.”[4]      But there is another implication to an atheistic worldview, and that's in the area of morals. If there is no God, then there is no moral Lawgiver outside of mankind, and no moral absolutes by which to declare anything ethically right or wrong. There is only subjective opinion, which fluctuates from person to person and group to group. We're left to conclude that if there are no moral absolutes, then what is, is right, and the conversation is over. Morality becomes a matter of what the majority wants, or what an elite, or individual, can impose on others. Francis Schaeffer wrote:  "If there is no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong. By absolute we mean that which always applies, that which provides a final or ultimate standard. There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an absolute if there are to be real values. If there is no absolute beyond man's ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions."[5]      Ironically, when the atheist states “there is no truth”, he is making a truth claim. And when he says “there are no absolutes”, he is stating an absolute. Logically, he cannot escape truth and absolutes, without which, reasoning and discussion are impossible. The biblically minded Christian celebrates both truth and absolutes which derive from God Himself, in which He declares some things right and other things wrong (e.g., Ex 20:1-17), and this according to His righteousness (Psa 11:7).      The atheistic view regards mankind as merely a part of the animal kingdom. But if people are just another form of animal—a naked ape as someone once described—then there's really no reason to get upset if we behave like animals. A pack of wild lions in the Serengeti suffer no pangs of conscience when they gang up on a helpless baby deer and rip it to shreds in order to satisfy their hunger pains. They would certainly not be concerned if they drove a species to extinction; after all, it's survival of the fittest. Let the strong survive and the weak die off. Evolution could also logically lead to racism, which is implied in Charles Darwin's book, The Origin of Species, which original subtitle mentions the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Ironically, we teach evolution in public schools, telling children they are just another animal species, but then get upset when they act like animals toward each other. We can't have it both ways. We can't logically teach atheistic evolution and simultaneously advocate for morality. It's a non sequitur. If there are no moral absolutes, then one cannot describe as evil the behavior of Nazis who murdered millions of Jews in World War II. Neither can one speak against the murder of tens of millions of people under the materialistic communistic regimes of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, or Pol Pot.      It's interesting that people cry out for personal and social justice because they're naturally wired that way. But for the atheist, such inclinations are either a learned behavior based on arbitrary social norms, or a biological quirk that developed from accidental evolutionary processes. Again, we're left with no moral absolutes and no meaning for life. Naturally, for the thinking person, this leads to despair. For this reason, some seek pleasure in drugs, or alcohol, partying and/or sexual promiscuity in order to deaden the pain of an empty heart. Others might move into irrational areas of mysticism and the occult. The Burning Man events are a good example of this. The few honest atheists such as Twain, Russell and others accept their place of despair and seek to get along in this world as best they can. But they have no lasting hope for humanity. None whatsoever.      But the Christian worldview is different. The biblically minded Christian has an answer in the Bible which gives lasting meaning and hope; and this allows us to use our reasoning abilities as God intended. The Bible presents the reality of God (Gen 1:1; Ex 3:14; Rev 1:8), who has revealed Himself to all people (Psa 19:1-2). The apostle Paul argued this point when he wrote, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Rom 1:20). This is called general revelation in which God reveals Himself through nature. God has also revealed Himself to the heart of every person, for “that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them” (Rom 1:19). John Calvin referred to this as the sensus divinitatis, which is an innate sense of divinity, an intuitive knowledge that God exists. Calvin wrote, “there exists in the human minds and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity.”[6] He further states, “All men of sound judgment will therefore hold, that a sense of Deity is indelibly engraved on the human heart.”[7] Part of Calvin's argument is based on God's special revelation in Scripture. But part of his observation is also based on human experience. Calvin wrote, “there never has been, from the very first, any quarter of the globe, any city, any household even, without religion, [which] amounts to a tacit confession, that a sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart.”[8] The problem is not with God's clear revelation, but with the human heart which is negative to Him. For those possessed with negative volition have, as their habit, to “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom 1:18). The problem lies in the sinful heart that suppresses that revelation from God in order to pursue one's sinful passions. The apostle Paul wrote: "For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures." (Rom 1:21-23)      However, God is a perfect gentleman and never forces Himself on anyone. People are free to choose whether to accept Him or not. But if they reject what light God gives of Himself, He is not obligated to give them further light, as they will only continue to reject it. Of those who are negative to God, three times it is written that He “gave them over” to “the lusts of their hearts” (Rom 1:24), and “to degrading passions” (Rom 1:26), and “to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper” (Rom 1:28). Once God permits a person to operate by his sinful passions, he is given a measure of freedom to live as he wants, but not without consequence.      God does not render final judgment upon the rebellious right away. Rather, God extends to them a common grace, which refers to the undeserved kindness or goodness He extends to everyone, regardless of whether they are righteous or unrighteous, good or evil. God's common grace is seen in His provision of the necessities of life (i.e., sun, rain, air, food, water, clothing, etc.). This grace depends totally on God and not the attitude or actions of others. Jesus said of His Father, that “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt 5:45). Paul affirmed this grace, saying, “In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways [in rebellion]; and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:16-17). Here, God's grace is most obvious, in that He provides the necessities of life and even blesses those who are unsaved and hostile toward Him. His love and open-handedness toward the undeserving springs completely out of the bounty of His own goodness. Part of the reason God is gracious and patient is that He “not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9). However, grace ends when the unbeliever dies, and if he has spent his life rejecting Christ as Savior, then afterward, he will stand before God's judgment seat, and if his name is “not found written in the book of life”, then he will be “thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev 20:15), where he will be for eternity. This final judgment is avoidable, if Jesus is accepted as one's Savior. The Bible reveals: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3:16-18)      To the heart that is positive to God and turns to Christ as Savior, He has revealed Himself in special ways in His Son, Jesus Christ (Heb 1:1-3), and in Scripture (1 Th 2:13; 2 Tim 3:16-17). God's special revelation gives us insights into realities we could never know on our own, except that God has revealed them to us in His Word in propositional terms. As we read the Bible in a plain manner, we come to realize that God exists as a trinity (or triunity), as God the Father (Gal 1:1; Eph 6:23; Phil 2:11), God the Son (Isa 7:14; 9:6; John 1:1, 8:58; 20:28; Col 2:9; Heb 1:8), and God the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3-4; 1 Cor 2:11-12; 2 Cor 13:14). And that all three persons of the trinity are co-equal, co-infinite, and co-eternal, and worthy of all praise and honor and glory. The Bible also reveals that God personally created His universe and earth in six literal days (Gen 1:1-31; Ex 20:8-11). That He created the first humans, Adam and Eve, in His image, with value and purpose to serve as theocratic administrators over the earth (Gen 1:26-28). We have the ability to reason because we are made in the image of God, who also gave us language as a means of communicating with Him and each other (Gen 2:15-17, 23). God also created a host of spirit beings called angels, but one of them, Lucifer, rebelled against God and convinced other angels to do the same (Isa 14:12-14; Ezek 28:12-17). Fallen angels are called demons and belong to Satan's ranks (Matt 25:41; Rev 12:7-9), and they influence the world of people in many ways in their thinking, values and behavior (1 Tim 4:1; Rev 16:13-14). Lucifer came to earth and convinced the first humans to rebel against God (Gen 3:1-7), took rulership over the earth (Luke 4:5-7; 2 Cor 4:4; Eph 2:2 1 John 5:19), and expanded his kingdom of darkness to include all unbelievers (Matt 13:36-40; John 8:44; Acts 26:18; Col 1:13-14). Adam and Eve's sin brought about spiritual death (i.e., separation from God) and God cursed the earth as a judgment upon them (Gen 3:14-19). God's judgment also explains why everything moves toward decay and physical death (i.e., the second law of thermodynamics). But God, because of His great mercy and love toward us, provided a solution to the problem of sin and spiritual death, and this through a Redeemer who would come and bear the penalty for our sins (Gen 3:15; Isa 7:14; 9:6; Matt 1:23; Luke 1:26-35; Gal 4:4; Heb 10:10, 14; 1 Pet 2:24; 3:18; Rev 1:5). This Redeemer was Jesus Christ, God the Son, the second Person of the Trinity who became human (John 1:1, 14), who lived a sinless life (2 Cor 5:21; Heb 4:15; 1 John 3:5), willingly died on a cross (John 10:17-18), was judged for all our sin (Heb 10:10, 14), and was buried and raised to life on the third day (1 Cor 15:3-4, 20), never to die again (Rom 6:9). After His redeeming work, Jesus ascended to heaven, where He awaits His return (Acts 1:9-11; cf. John 14:1-3; 1 Th 4:13-18). Jesus' work on the cross opens the way for us to have forgiveness of sins (Eph 1:7), and spiritual life (Eph 1:3; 1 Pet 1:3, 23), if we'll trust in Him as our Savior (John 3:16; 20:31).      When a Philippian jailer asked the apostle Paul, “what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30), Paul gave the simple answer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Act 16:31). Believing in Christ means we turn from trusting in anyone or anything as having any saving value (which is the meaning of repentance) and place our complete confidence in Christ to save, accepting Him and His work on the cross as all that is needed to have eternal life. Salvation comes to us by grace alone (it's an undeserved gift), through faith alone (adding no works), in Christ alone (as the only One who saves). Paul wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9). God also promises us an eternal existence with Him in Heaven (John 14:1-3), who will eventually create a new heavens and earth, which will be marked by perfect righteousness (2 Pet 3:13), and be free from sin and death (Rev 21:1-5). God has already begun this restoration process, and this starts with the restoration of lost sinners to Himself, and progressing toward the complete and perfect restoration of the universe and earth.      If we accept God and His offer of salvation, we have a new relationship with Him, and this means we are part of His royal family. God also gives meaning to our lives and calls us to serve as His representatives in a fallen world. To reject God and His offer is to choose an eternal existence away from Him in the Lake of Fire. This is avoidable, if one turns to Christ as Savior, believing the good news that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and raised again on the third day (1 Cor 15:3-4). Won't you trust in Christ as your Savior and begin this new and wonderful life? I pray you do. Other recommended sources referenced in this lesson: Francis Schaeffer: Trilogy: https://smile.amazon.com/Francis-Schaeffer-Trilogy-Three-Essential/dp/0891075615 Francis Schaeffer: How Should Then Live - https://smile.amazon.com/Should-Then-Live-LAbri-Anniversary-ebook/dp/B00IFG0AD8 Francis Schaeffer: How Should Then Live Ten Part Video Series - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpPMMb50QcE&list=PLP0lSOp9RORx7W0REI8SVK2CNIrMjhS_T James Sire: The Universe Next Door - https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Next-Door-Worldview-Catalog-ebook/dp/B084L3SQDY Jean-Paul Sartre: Existentialism and Human Emotions - https://www.amazon.com/Existentialism-Human-Emotion-Philosophical-Library/dp/0806509023 The Humanist Manifesto - https://smile.amazon.com/Humanist-Manifesto-2000-Planetary-Humanism/dp/157392783X Steve's Blog: https://thinkingonscripture.com/ Steve's Books: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B005FSY6XO Steve's Audio Lessons: https://thinkingonscripture.com/audio-video/   [1] Mark Twain, The Autobiography of Mark Twain, edited by Michael J. Kiskis (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, WI, 2013), 28. [2] Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man's Worship” from Mysticism and Logic (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1917). [3] Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, 50th L'Abri Anniversary Edition. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), 167. [4] Ibid., 170. [5] Ibid., 145. [6] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 1997), 1.3.1 [7] Ibid., 1.3.3 [8] Ibid., 1.3.1

"What Do Humanists Believe? The Humanist Manifesto III provides a long list of humanist beliefs. (By the way, “manifesto” turned out to be a poor choice of words, since the term became associated with communism.) The first Humanist Manifesto was published in 1933. It has been updated twice since then. Humanists believe a lot of the same things theists believe. Humanists believe that all humans are part of one human family. They strive to treat everyone fairly, to avoid prejudice, and to care for other people. Humanists aspire for a world in which everyone has an opportunity to live a happy and fulfilled life. A Brief Summation of Humanism: Humanists recognize that it is only when people feel free to think for themselves, using reason as their guide, that they are best capable of developing values that succeed in satisfying human needs and serving human interests.— Isaac Asimov (Scientist and author) Humanists believe in personal freedom, but also social responsibility. And what is ethics but a set of rules for living harmoniously together with one another? Morality predates modern religions. Humanists are guided by reason, empathy, and understanding to behave in an ethical way. Humanists believe that reason and science provide the best means for understanding the world around you and that treating others with dignity and compassion is the best way to live." --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/support

In part six of our series, Knowing What You Believe and Why You Believe It, Les Norman and Ed Croteau will help you understand American culture, modernism, and how it fails to lead you to the ultimate truth. Ed is the leader of the Faith, Substance, and Evidence University at Abundant Life Church, Lee's Summit. You can also check out the FSE University Facebook page to catch his articles about how cultural events relate to Biblical truths. To understand American culture, we should be familiar with the three most popular cultural views: Modernism: This approach focuses on scientific, empirical methods of reasoning to form truths. It quickly became a rebellion against faith and the church. Postmodernism: Most popular with Gen Z and Millennials, this view revolves around skepticism and a lack of trust. The idea that technology is the answer to man's moral dilemma is now false. Technology no longer solves every problem. (We'll discuss the worldview next week.) Christianity: Reality is defined by God. Why is it important to understand these worldviews? We need to understand where people are coming from so we can deconstruct their claims and help them toward the gospel. Modernism believes that man can do it all. We don't need God anymore. This approach has infiltrated our education system, media, and entertainment industry. For example, think back to the movie, God's Not Dead. Specifically, when the professor tried to tell the kid what was true. This is an example of modernism in the education system. From its conception in 1933 (The Humanist Manifesto), modernism promotes viewpoints that are directly contrary to the Biblical truths we believe. Abundant Life Church Website: livingproof.co FSE Website: https://fse.life FSE YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8SDiIK6Q1p0fIvPlxZIbxg FSE Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/fselife

In this Episode of The GRID, host Chris Kuhlmann examines humanism on the heels of our previous podcast about the Barrington Declaration and the mention that Dr. Anthony Fauci had received the Humanist of the Year award for 2021. Chris discusses what humanism is and it's impact out society and politics and how little most Christian know about this belief system.   CREDITS Host: Chris Kuhlmann Written by: Chris Kuhlmann Produced by: Chris Kuhlmann Shaun Griffin Music composed by JD Kuhlmann Art: Shaun Griffin Sound: Chris Kuhlmann and Shaun Griffin Sponsor: Sand Castles Cottages of Lake Michigan Be sure to visit www.sandcastlescottages.com   Visit us at www.kingdompatriot.us and check out our Vision Video Email: admin@KingdomPatriot.US   HUMANISM: Good without God It so good for you to join me today on the Grid. Our topic today is humanism. Now this is not what we had planned for this week, but one of our listeners contacted me and was concerned that so many Christians were truly unaware of humanism…they couldn't define it, they can't identify it, they can't discern it, and therefore can see it for what it is. So thanks to our listener. We also know that when you reach out to us on the Grid, we listen. You can email us at admin@kingdompatriot.us, again that's admin@kingdompatriot.us if you want to email us directly.   Why this is so relevant is because last week w/ the podcast “Fauci and the Great Barrington” Declaration, we noted that Dr. Anthony Fauci was awarded Humanist of the Year in 2021. This is what prompted our listener to reach out and why we are here today discussing this. So let's break this down today into three parts: The first part will be to define Humanism and examine its origins. Part II will be a discussion in how this impacts the political and social arena…and Part III will be to cite specific examples of humanist thought in our government policy.   Part I What is Humanism   www.Dictionary.com any system or mode of thought or action in which human interests, values, and dignity predominate. devotion to or study of the humanities. (sometimes initial capital letter) the studies, principles, or culture of the humanists. a variety of ethical theory and practice that emphasizes reason, scientific inquiry, and human fulfillment in the natural world and often rejects the importance of belief in God. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings as the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. Humanists International - https://humanists.international/what-is-humanism/ “Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance that affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. Humanism stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethics based on human and other natural values in a spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. Humanism is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.” — The Minimum Statement on Humanism, Humanists International A humanist bases their understanding of the world on reason and scientific method (rejecting supernatural or divine beliefs as bad explanations or ill-formed ideas). A humanist bases their ethical decisions again on reason, with the input of empathy, and aiming toward the welfare and fulfillment of living things. A humanist is someone who recognizes that we, human beings, are the most curious and the most capable curators of knowledge in the known universe. To gain knowledge, we must use our reason and experience to understand the world. And we may create or partake of the great artistic fruits of humankind to enhance our emotional palettes, deepen our empathy and enrich our understanding. But we reject any reliance on blindly received authority, or on dogma, or what others may claim is divine revelation (because we don't believe we get tip-offs about truth from a supreme being beyond time and space. That would be cheating!) A humanist is someone who recognizes that we, human beings, are by far the most sophisticated moral actors on the Earth. We can grasp ethics. This does not mean we are the only moral objects. For example other animals deserve moral consideration, too, and perhaps the environment as a whole. It is also worth noting that some other (non-human) animals exhibit patterns of behaviour that look a lot like care, empathy, in a few cases even apparently responding to what looks like ‘unfair' behaviour by seeking to redress it! These different types and stages of animals thinking about others may be taken as evidence of how ethical behavior evolved in human beings. However, humans do seem to have a unique capacity for moral choice. It would be unusual for example to say that a dog or a dolphin had behaved “immorally”! But when it comes to humans, we are able to choose to act in the interests of the welfare of living things, advancement of society, and fulfillment of our own and others personal goals… or against them! This choice and our knowledge of that choice makes us ‘moral actors'. To act well, we must take responsibility for ourselves and others. We do not do this for the sake of preferential treatment in any afterlife (even if we believed in it, that motivation wouldn't make our actions good!). We do it because the best we can do is to live this life as brilliantly as we can. That means helping others in community, advancing society, and flourishing at whatever we do best within those bounds. And humanists are people who find value in themselves and each other, respecting the personhood and dignity of fellow human beings. We respect other people not because we are made “in the image” of something else (we are a product of evolution, not the product of a divine plan), but because of what we are. We are a sentient, feeling species, with value and dignity in each individual, and that is worthy of respect. There is no reason to believe that “meaning” has to come from a supreme being. If you can write a sentence on paper which isn't nonsense, then you can create meaning! For a humanist, there is no divine plan or purpose. The humanist recognises that we make our own purposes, tell our own stories, set our own goals. This gives life meaning.   So what are the origins of humanism?   https://americanhumanist.org/about/our-history/ According to the American Humanist Association, which by the way on their website, says “Good without God”, Humanism really began to take root in the renaissance. However, its roots are in ancient Greek thought. It evolved during the Reformation, Enlightenment, and scientific revolution and began to resemble its current form in the late nineteenth century.   In 1933, a major humanism milestone was achieved with the creation of the Humanist Manifesto supported by 34 national leaders including John Dewey. The American Humanist Association was formed in 1941.   During the 1940's the association was supportive of Vashti McCollum in her fight against religious instruction in schools. She was the plaintiff in the landmark case McCollum vs Board of Education which struck down religious education in schools.   Don't tell me for an instant, that sitting on the sidelines doesn't have a devastating long-term effect. Vashti later served two terms as the president of the American Humanist Association in the 60's   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger One of the earliest recipients of the Humanist of the Year award was Margaret Sanger in 1957 for her activism for birth control and sex education. Another total winner in a God-void world-view. She popularized the term “birth control” and created organizations that evolved into the modern day planned parenthood as we know them today. It seems debatable if she promoted abortions or discouraged them, but wanted to avoid back alley abortions and the like. However, what is less arguable is her support for eugenics.   https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/07/28/margaret-sangers-extreme-brand-eugenics?gclid=Cj0KCQiAuvOPBhDXARIsAKzLQ8HMTIR9Z6OlimN7ThGef1ExzsIFu59Im8j9KxNBPjR6-kDCwS2eqz4aAp1kEALw_wcB In fact, her name has become such a lightening rod, that Planned Parenthood removed Margaret Sanger's name from their headquarters. She is supported sterilization of those with mental and physical disabilities allegedly calling them “morons, mental defectives, epileptics”.   To sum up her beliefs, listen carefully to these next few sentences quoted directly from the American magazine “It argues that to preserve racial hygiene, the government should enact three coercive measures. First, it should sterilize those with mental and physical disabilities, including “morons, mental defectives, epileptics.” Second, it should segregate on state-run concentration farms a much broader public of impoverished and criminal citizens, including paupers, prostitutes, drug addicts, illiterates and the unemployed. If the second group reformed its behavior and accepted sterilization, it could return to mainstream society. By Sanger's own estimate, 15 million to 20 million citizens would live under this regime of segregation and sterilization. The third initiative would be obligatory birth-control training for mothers with serious diseases, such as heart disease, in an effort to persuade them to renounce any future childbearing. This program was not about “choice.”   This podcast is not about Margaret Sanger, but what I'm trying to show you is how progressive humanism is. If we believe in Christ, we could never, never support policies like this.   So back to the history https://americanhumanist.org/about/our-history/. In 1973, Humanist Manifesto II was born. In 1991, the Humanist was recognized as an alternative forum for social and political commentary. Fast forward to 2008 and 2009 and the AHA starting placing billboard adds directly appealing to those who are not of faith with slogans like “Why believe in God? Just be good for goodness sake” or “Don't believe in God? You are not alone.”   I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. This movement was just a place for those to congregate who did not believe in God, but today they are active in promoting anti-God messages that our society has lazily accepted.   Part 2 The Impact on the Social and Political Arena We want to examine how this impacts the social and political arena. So let's take a look at the principals we just talked about: Emphasizes Reason Trusts science Rejects God and religion Human beings are the author of morality The supernatural is made up of bad decisions or ill-formed ideas Human beings are the most capable of knowledge in the universe Human beings are the determiner of their own fates Humans can grasp ethics and are the most capable of any creature on earth   It's not just politics, but there are some on this list…it's that humanism has invaded every aspect of society. Here's just a few examples of humanists according to the AHA   Bestselling Authors Joyce Carol Oates Isaac Asimov Salman Rushdie   Scientists and Science Advocates Steve Wozniak Bill Nye Carl Sagan   Philosophers John Dewey   Prominent Activists Gloria Steinem Betty Friedan Jack Kevorkian   Political Leaders Barney Frank Pete Stark   Actors, Directors, Writers, and Entertainers Oliver Stone Gene Roddenberry Katharine Hepburn Kristen Bell   Media and Journalism Amy Goodman Cenk Uygur Michelle Goldberg Ira Flatow Pacifica Radio Foundation The Onion   It's no wonder that humanism is so pervasive. In fact, sometimes I struggle if politics is the cause or the result. Maybe we elect humanistic leaders because we are inundated with humanistic thought by authors, scientists, philosophers, activists, political leaders, Hollywood, and media.   So let me ask in a form of a question, the essence of part II of this podcast. If we are bombarded with humanism in every aspect of life and we have people in powerful positions of government who are dedicated humanists, how could we not believe that this would have a profound impact on government policy?   Part 3 Examples What are some examples? Well I suppose we could work backwards. Who is in control of the federal government's policies regarding the COVID19 pandemic and vaccines and vaccine mandates? Of course, Anthony Fauci. And what do we know about Anthony Fauci? That's right, a dedicated humanist who inherently believes in the goodness of man. So let's look at his recommendations and policies You should mask up everywhere You should get the vaccines and boosters We should make the vaccines compulsory You should do all of this for your fellow man We should trust the experts The science is clear We know best Do you see how the humanistic thought is pervasive in these recommendations? There's no trust in Christ, no praying about direction, it's about those who we are supposed to trust making decisions about the betterment of society and anyone disagreeing with that is to be vilified, ostracized, attacked, etc. If you didn't listen to last week's podcast on Fauci and the Great Barrington Declaration, I highly suggest you do so. Knowing about the Great Barrington, it will bring chills to your spine on what I'm about to share. It has been recently uncovered that Fauci covertly conspired with other so-called experts to discredit the Great Barrington Declaration almost from the onset? Why? Because it wasn't his science, and there ladies and gentleman is the most disturbing, the most concerning, an offense to God, is man's utter believe in himself, his science, and the belief that he can dictate, control life itself. The humanist truly believes there is no creator, so that we must trust in ourselves. Yet time and time again in history, science over-time actually confirms the existence of our God and often refutes previous science thought to be the beginning and end of all wisdom. Let's say for instance, when the earth was flat - that's what all the scientists said.   What will the scientists say in 100 years about COVID19. I feel confident it won't be “the experts got it right.”   So, I don't mean to go on a Fauci rant nor on our government, but rather to educate you on the pervasive parasitic nature of humanism - man believing in man, believing in the goodness of man, in the salvation of one's self, void of God is a stench in the eyes of Almighty God. If man was all that, Jesus would never have had to come and save us. No my friends, we know the human heart is wicked and is in desperate need of savior - whether it's my, my wife and kids, my neighbor and friends, or Fauci, Biden, and Trump. We all need Jesus and any hope in man is hope ill-placed.   I implore you to keep your eyes out on where you can always refocus on Christ. When you see man relying on man, gently remind them that the Lord is in control, even when we don't see it, we must turn to Christ or the fearful pandemic of our hearts will never end.   I hope this was helpful in better understanding what the implications of “Humanist of the Year” really means.

Links from Today’s Show: Matthew 18: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+18&version=KJV Offense: http://www.webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/offense Merrick Garland Mobilizes FBI for CTR: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/ag-merrick-garland-instructs-fbi-mobilize-parents-oppose-critical-race-theory-covid-mandates-public-schools/ Court Definition of Secular Humanism: http://vftonline.org/Patriarchy/definitions/humanism_religion.htm Humanist Manifesto: https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto1/ Websters “Religion”: http://www.webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/religion Websters “Church”: http://www.webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/church Citizen Free press: https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/merrick-garland-school-board-protests-are-domestic-terrorism/ Thomas […]

Humanism has been a key challenge to Christianity and theism, so I have invited my good friend Warren, an agnostic, to discuss the Humanist Manifesto.Evidently, not all humanists can be summarised or reduced to the humanist manifesto, but it is a good place to start. In this video, we discuss the first 6 theses of the Manifesto and in the next video, we would discuss the remaining theses.--------------------------To check out more about my content feel free to go to my YouTube Channel Apologetics for All to access clips and extra discussions

UNESCO. The “Humanist Manifesto” and the “Great Reset” have been part of an incredible plan to undermine parents and patriots through education. Today, author and speaker Alex Newman will discuss where we went wrong and what can be done to save the next generation from the spiritual and emotional poison that's in our schools today. **Go to HeidiStJohn.com/Podcasts for links and more** --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/heidistjohn/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/heidistjohn/support

Hour 1 * Guest: Lowell Nelson – CampaignForLiberty.org – RonPaulInstitute.org. * Political Leadership School in Utah on July 31, [this Saturday] – The goal of the Foundation for Applied Conservative Leadership is to help conservative citizens like you understand how the political process really works in America, and how you can use this knowledge to make real change at the local, state, and even national level. * Olympics, the biggest “Masking Theater” Broadcast on Earth. * Daily COVID Deaths in Sweden Hit Zero, as Other Nations Brace for More Lockdowns. * Sweden was maligned last year because it did not lockdown. The Guardian called its response “a catastrophe in the making,” while CBS News said that Sweden had become “an example of how not to handle COVID-19.” What was Sweden's approach? It was to NOT lock down. To NOT impose a mask mandate. To NOT close businesses and schools – Today, Sweden is free and healthier than virtually any other country in Europe. Like South Dakota. Like Florida. * The Prevalence of Evil – Paul Craig Roberts. * Dr. Peter Mccullough – Urgent Warning About Poisonous Jabs. * ‘Ed-exit' to Protect Your Kids from Critical Race Theory – Ron Paul – Ron suggests that we restore parental control of education dollars through education tax credits and tax-free education savings accounts. This will enable parents to afford private schooling for their children. Home schooling is an increasingly attractive option. * Letter from Ted Cruz to Lowell Nelson – Term Limits! * how does Sam feel about term limits? Hour 2 * Guest: Dr. Scott Bradley – To Preserve The Nation – FreedomsRisingSun.com. * Sam on FreedomFest Panel: Busted: Is Criminal Justice Permanently Broken? – Yes, Unless we turn to and look to God and the God Ordained Traditional Family for Solutions! – Dr. Bradley makes the case and breaks down the truth of the matter point by point! * We must unequivocally Reject both The Humanist Manifesto and The Communist Manifesto! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/loving-liberty/support

* Guest: Dr. Scott Bradley – To Preserve The Nation – FreedomsRisingSun.com. * Sam on FreedomFest Panel: Busted: Is Criminal Justice Permanently Broken? - Yes, Unless we turn to and look to God and the God Ordained Traditional Family for Solutions! - Dr. Bradley makes the case and breaks down the truth of the matter point by point! * We must unequivocally Reject both The Humanist Manifesto and The Communist Manifesto!

Episode discussion topics Religion is up on deck and clearly within citizens' prerogative territory as it's mentioned in our founding documents. Once within the U.S. Constitution: Art. VI - no religious Test for any office of public trust. Twice within the Bill of Rights: Amend. I - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. A clearer perspective of where MVP and RWJ stand on this topic and why they don't take it lightly. In a nutshell: The lane where religion best serves its believers and society at large under our system of self-government.  The shelf where religious books rest along with other great works of art. The home where faith lives, inside each of us and all of us. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info Albeit this tends to be a touchy topic for one and all; just like so many others, we cannot afford to avoid it any longer. We hope you enjoy it or at least find it thought-provoking. Absolution, social media, and community, oh my! MVP mentioned the Humanize Me podcast hosted by Bart Campolo; specifically referencing episode 604 on Constructive disagreements featuring David C. Smalley. Check out the Humanist Manifesto! If you're not familiar or if it sounds scary to you, please choose to be curious! "Good Without A God" represents the American Humanist Association's mission of Advocating progressive values and equality for humanists, atheists, and freethinkers. MVP swears by only reading the insightful stuff, but there are many local chapters for folks who prefer to interact with humans. We forgot to mention our other most interesting relative, the Densinovans! MVP is Neanderthal-centric as he carries some of their DNA, so it makes sense he may not have noticed his bias. "Homo sapiens lived alongside an estimated eight now-extinct species of human about 300,000 years ago. As recently as 15,000 years ago, we were sharing caves with another human species known as the Denisovans." - Benjamin Plackett, contributor from Livescience.com. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc. 

Hour 1 * Guest: Dr. Scott Bradley – To Preserve The Nation – FreedomsRisingSun.com. * Light of the World – a Cappella – Eclipse 6. * The Children’s Story – James Clavell. * Trump to appoint Sidney Powell as special counsel on vote fraud? President reportedly suggests naming legal powerhouse – Joe Kovacs. * Michael Flynn spoke of using the military to oversee a new election and encouraged Trump to consider martial law. * MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell spoke of martial law in a since-deleted tweet, according to Newsweek. * Trump denies speculation he’ll declare martial law to hold another election – Jack Davis. * Trump Tweets: “Martial law = Fake News. Just more knowingly bad reporting!” * After several studies, Alfred Kinsey discovered that sexual orientation is more of a continuum so he developed the Kinsey Scale. On the Kinsey Scale, 0 represents exclusive patterns of heterosexual behavior and attraction, and 6 represent an exclusive pattern of homosexual behavior and attraction. * Defamation Suits Could Sink Right-Wing Media – NYT. * Humanist Manifesto 1973! Hour 2 * Congress reaches nearly $900 billion COVID-19 aid deal! * Chris Cuomo on CNN, asked Fauci whether the masks could finally come off now – Dr Fauci On Vaccines. * The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said employees could be barred from the workplace if they refused the vaccine. Employers can require workers to get a Covid-19 vaccine and bar them from the workplace if they refuse, the federal government said in guidelines issued this week. * Moderna’s FDA Report Lists 13 Deaths in Vaccine Trials But Company Says Deaths Not Related to Vaccine. * More than 70% of Americans report wearing a mask in public, study shows. * Biden introduces his climate team, says ‘no time to waste’. * Black Lives Matter Has Received $10.6 BILLION Since May. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/loving-liberty/support

* Guest: Dr. Scott Bradley – To Preserve The Nation – FreedomsRisingSun.com. * Light of the World – a Cappella – Eclipse 6. * The Children's Story - James Clavell. * Trump to appoint Sidney Powell as special counsel on vote fraud? President reportedly suggests naming legal powerhouse - Joe Kovacs. * Michael Flynn spoke of using the military to oversee a new election and encouraged Trump to consider martial law. * MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell spoke of martial law in a since-deleted tweet, according to Newsweek. * Trump denies speculation he'll declare martial law to hold another election - Jack Davis. * Trump Tweets: "Martial law = Fake News. Just more knowingly bad reporting!" * After several studies, Alfred Kinsey discovered that sexual orientation is more of a continuum so he developed the Kinsey Scale. On the Kinsey Scale, 0 represents exclusive patterns of heterosexual behavior and attraction, and 6 represent an exclusive pattern of homosexual behavior and attraction. * Defamation Suits Could Sink Right-Wing Media - NYT. * Humanist Manifesto 1973!

UNESCO. The “Humanist Manifesto” and the “Great Reset” have been part of an incredible plan to undermine parents and patriots through education. Today, author and speaker Alex Newman will discuss where we went wrong and what can be done to save the next generation from the spiritual and emotional poison that’s in our schools today. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/heidistjohn/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/heidistjohn/support

UNESCO. The “Humanist Manifesto” and the “Great Reset” have been part of an incredible plan to undermine parents and patriots through education. Today, author and speaker Alex Newman will discuss where we went wrong and what can be done to save the next generation from the spiritual and emotional poison that’s in our schools today. **Find links and more under PODCASTS at HeidiStJohn.com** --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/heidistjohn/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/heidistjohn/support

Jackie talks about the Pope's latest initiative to unite all of mankind in conjunction with the efforts of other gloalists to form the New World Order

With Evangelicalism being a tarnished brand for some, is it time for a different way of thinking about the Christian faith in the increasingly non-Christian west? Here I tentatively offer the idea of Christian Humanism as an alternative.

My guest today is Tony Falco. Tony is a visionary club owner, community builder, art and music promoter, and a facilitator to support living artists. Tony began hosting house concerts in 2001, in a structure behind the Falco home that was built from all recycled materials. The intimate listening room was a remarkable space with fine acoustics, a grand piano, stage lighting and seating for nearly 100. In a couple of months Tony was providing high level musicians an intimate space to perform for enthusiastic audiences. Using a donation box and potluck meals for contributions, plus Tony, his wife Julie, and their children’s gracious hospitality, musicians felt warmly welcomed, valued and respected. Bursting at the seams, four years later Tony purchased a 19th century button factory, perched over the Marlboro (NY) Falls once used to power the factory, and converted it into The Falcon, a vibrant music club. Tony’s club has become the “Village Vanguard of the Hudson Valley” with artists on a regular rotation with New York City's most respected venues; a rural Mecca for the finest in multiple genres; including jazz, blues, rock, gospel, world music and contemporary chamber music. Tony’s humility, philosophy and vision is captured in this Humanist Manifesto declaration written by the Humanist International general assembly: “Humanism values artistic creativity and imagination and recognizes the transforming power of art. Humanism affirms the importance of literature, music and the visual and performing arts for personal development and fulfillment.” Check out the links below for The Falcon to see their rich roster of music events. I encourage you to support Tony’s vision by supporting this incredible venue.  Enjoy the podcast! Links: Live at The Falcon Amsterdam Declaration NY Times article on The Falcon

Today we are starting something new. I’m very excited to present to you in its entirety, the apologetics conference held in Paducah, KY last June. We’ve got a great line up of speakers for you including Jerry Wierwille, myself, Kenny Willenburg, Dale Tuggy, Kegan Chandler, and John Truitt. It was a wonderful time of meeting Read more about 143 Apologetics Conference 1: The Problem of Privatization (Jerry Wierwille)[…]

Rev. Shelley Page

Cass Midgley and Bob Pondillo interview Valerie Torico. Dr. Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer with a passion for personal and social evolution. Today, we discuss Tarico’s book, Trusting Doubt:  A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light, offers personal insight into how we can apply “constructive curiosity” to our most closely guarded beliefs.   As a social commentator, Tarico tackles issues ranging from religious fundamentalism to gender roles, to reproductive rights and technologies. A primary focus is on improving access to top tier contraceptive technologies. To that end, in 2015, she co-founded Resilient Generation, a family planning advocacy hub based in Seattle, Washington. She serves on the board of Advocates for Youth, a D.C. based nonprofit with wide-ranging programs related to reproductive health and justice, and is a Senior Writing Fellow at Sightline Institute, a think tank focused on sustainable prosperity. Her articles have appeared at sites including the Huffington Post, Jezebel, Salon, AlterNet, and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and they are available at ValerieTarico.com. Bob and I (Cass) wish you a wonderful summer solstice, time with family and friends, the giving and receiving of gifts from loved ones, and however else you recognize these year end holidays. If you're going to be with family with whom there is religious tension, I encourage you to stick to humanist values when you're with them and be present as a healthy, mature version of yourself. To that end, I will now read excerpts from the third Humanist Manifesto and David Richo's declarations of healthy adulthood: As humans, you and your family members are an integral part of nature, the result of evolutionary change, an unguided process. Our ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Our fulfillment in life emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Working to benefit society, even a micro-society like your family gatherings, maximizes your own individual happiness. We humanists have respect for differing views in an open social context, as long as they are humane. And from Richo, in preparation for potentially incendiary encounters with family and friends, say these to yourself before you engage: I accept full responsibility for the shape my life has taken.I need never fear my own truth, thoughts, or sexuality.I let people go away or stay and I am still okay.I accept that I may never feel I am receiving – or have received – all the attention I seek.I acknowledge that reality is not obligated to me; it remains unaffected by my wishes or rights.One by one, I drop every expectation of people and things.I reconcile myself to the limits on others’ giving to me and on my giving to them.Until I see another’s behavior with compassion, I have not understood it.I let go of blame, regret, vengeance, and the infantile desire to punish those who hurt or reject me.I am still safe when I cease following the rules my parents (or others) set for me.I cherish my own integrity and do not use it as a yardstick for anyone else’s behavior.I am free to have and entertain any thought. I do not have the right to do whatever I want. I respect the limits of freedom and still act freely.No one can or needs to bail me out. I am not entitled to be taken care of by anyone or anything.I give without demanding appreciation though I may always ask for it.I reject whining and complaining as useless distractions from direct action on or withdrawal from unacceptable situations.I let go of control without losing control.If people knew me as I really am, they would love me for being human like them.I drop poses and let my every word and deed reveal what I am really like.I live by personal standards and at the same time – in self-forgiveness – I make allowances for my occasional lapses.I grant myself a margin of error in my relationships. I release myself from the pain of having to be right or competent all the time.I accept that it is normal to feel that I do not always measure up.I am ultimately adequate to any challenge that comes to me.My self-acceptance is not complacency since in itself it represents an enormous change.I am happy to do what I love and love what is.Wholehearted engagement with my circumstances releases my irrepressible liveliness.I love unconditionally and set sane conditions on my self-giving. So get out there and be your self. Your "self" and presence are precious. Someday you and all your family members will be dead, never to be experienced ever again. You and they will not be sitting around the dinner table someday. But this Christmas,  you and they will be there, together, in the same rooms, and that is valuable beyond measure. Bring your body, mind and soul into those rooms. As much as you're able and comfortable, be the miracle that you are with those people, whether they understand that or not. Be gentle with yourself. Don't do anything you don't want to do. Be as honest as you can and look for the magic moments, as brief and rare as they may be. And remember Bob and I and the relationships you've made through this podcast and the larger atheist community and that you are LOVED just as you are, even if your family is unable to do that. Happy Holidays my agnostic friends!   We taped the conversation with Valerie Tarico on November 19th, 2017. We interview people you don’t know, about a subject no one wants to talk about. We hope to encourage people in the process of deconstructing their faith and help curb the loneliness that accompanies it. We think the world is a better place when more people live by sight, not by faith. Please subscribe to our podcast, and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, you can support us monetarily in two easy ways: you can pledge one dollar per episode or more through Patreon; that’s www.patreon.com/eapodcast, or leave a lump-sum donation through PayPal at our website, www.everyonesagnostic.com. The smallest contribution is greatly appreciated. Credits:"Towering Mountain of Ignorance" intro by Hank Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3v3S82TuxU Intro bumper "Never Know" by Jack JohnsonThe segue music on this episode was created by Cass Midgley Thanks for listening! And be a Yes-sayer to what is.  https://valerietarico.com/ http://www.wisdomcommons.org/ Twitter: @valerietarico  The movie, "The Mask You Live In."   

The nature of work is rapidly changing. Routine, process-oriented work is diminishing and knowledge work applied to ambiguous workplace scenarios is increasing. Is the time spent designing, building and maintaining process-oriented IT systems proportional to the amount of time the rest of the organization spends with those processes? Recognizing a disconnect there will be the start of a journey requiring a shift in culture and perspective. The digital humanist manifesto is a tool that CIOs and senior IT leaders can use to achieve that goal.Visit http://eod.gartner.com/event/pcc13 to view more recorded sessions from Gartner’s Digital Workplace Summit, 2015.

This episode of Pneumatikos explores the power of the Gospel and its singular ability to meet the deepest needs of the human heart.  The striptease of humanism has proven its moral vapidity,and utter inability to provide a refuge for the shattered and needy heart.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God to win us out from sinful abandon.  Sin is deceitful.  It would woo us into agreement with the most lethal self-deception, and betray us to the deepest bondage.  The Gospel is God's freedom manifesto for the sin weary heart.

May 13, 2013 was the 80th anniversary of the signing of the Humanist Manifesto. We will celebrate humanism and explore the influence of this important aspect of Unitarian Universalism.

Hopefully, youll learn some things thatll encourage you and challenge you in your framework and world view. As we looked at Larry this morning and heard what he had to say, [I thought] Im glad to be in a church thats not afraid to ask the big questions. We obviously in a half hour dont have time to address all of the things and all the questions that Larry asked, but believe me there are answers to all of those. We do want to look at a few things, and we want to talk about secular humanism in light of the Bible because what you may not believe is after Christianity and Islam, secular humanism is probably the prevailing religion in the world today. And you say, Secular humanism religion? I didnt know that. I thought it was secular. But, friends, the reality is if you were to read, The Humanist Manifesto, the first one that was put together in 1933, about 5 of the 14 planks of The Humanist Manifesto call humanism a religion. Interesting, ha? So theres nothing new under the sun, and these people believe what they believe passionately. They believe it ardently, and they believe its the answer to human beings ills, needs, and salvation, and so as such-as we talk over the next six weeks and start this series on World View, one of the things that we need to address right off the top is one of the prevailing religions in the world today-which is secular humanism. Its interesting too that since in the second and third revisions of The Humanist Manifesto that that kind of religious tone has been edited out of that, but, again, going back to 1933, the founders of that viewed secular humanism as a religion and a world view that embraced all of life. The first thing that we see out of that-if you were to go to the secular humanist website and read The Humanist Manifesto, you will find words like this: secular humanism provides a cosmic outlook, a world view, in the broadest sense. By world view, we mean a big picture kind of look at the world that embraces everything, everybody and everything we do. Secular humanists see themselves as undersigned, unintended beings who arose through evolution possessing unique attributes of self-awareness and moral agency. I always chuckle how they got self-awareness and moral agency if there was no God, and they came to exist all by themselves by accident; but thats a whole other topic. Friends, as we look at this Passage and look at this religion in light of the Scripture, well look at Psalm 14:1 (page 538 of pew Bibles) to begin with. We will look at three Passages, but lets first turn to Psalm 14:1. David, 3,000 years ago, wrote these words. He said, Only fools say in their hearts there is no God. They are corrupt. Their actions are evil. Not one of them does good. When we talk about fools and Pastor Jeff asked me to entitle this message on secular humanism, The Fool, I dont mean that in necessarily a derogatoral way whereas we talk about being a fool; I dont mean in the terms of being mentally deranged or mentally handicapped. Were talking about someone who is simple, someone who is naïve, someone who doesnt get the big picture, someone who doesnt take the farthest look, somebody who sets aside reason and intellect in order to come to the conclusions that they do. There are many wonderful illustrations that children make. In Jesus Takes, we had little Nolan this morning, and God talks about little children as the examples of faith because they embrace things and believe things, almost unequivocally. You know you tell a child the sky is blue and the moons made out of green cheese, and, Okay. And so Jesus said trust Him as the faith of a little child. The flip side is that we want to use children as an illustration-not in a derogatory way but just an incomplete way. The children are also very naïve, arent they? If I were to ask the question, how many of you were afraid of the dark when you were a kid? Some brave people. If you were like me, I was very afraid of the dark, and basements, it was like, Oh, my goodness. Please, Mother, dont send me down to the basement for potatoes or something! I remember when the movie Home Alone came out and Macaulay Culkin went down there and the furnace kicked on. It was like, Ahhhhh! Youve got to be kidding me! I remember going down to the basement and turning on the lights, creaking down the stairs and looking for potatoes. I found their little eyes looking back at me. Then the furnace came on, and I would just make a bee-line up the stairs. It was like the bake of potatoes playing Chariots of Fire. I was sprinting up the stairs. I was terrified of the dark. That carried over every time I went to bed, you know. You had monsters and all those things. I had nightmares almost every night of my childhood in to my teenage years. As a child, when youre afraid of the dark, and youre dreaming of monsters, what do you do to get away from it? You pull the covers up over your head, right? Because if you cant see them, they cant get you, right? The secular humanist and the fool as God looks at here are very much like that. Pull the covers up over your head and pretend that God isnt there. He doesnt exist. Why? Because I cant see Him. Regardless of what youve heard in history books, the majority of the people in Galileos time or Columbus time did not believe that the world was flat. They didnt. Youve heard that, but its not true. Regardless of what some of our modern movies say, the Catholic Church did not reject Galileo because he said the earth went around the sun. That was not the issue at all. The point is that people like Sir Isaac Newton who believed in God, who made the world, said that science was possible and that you could study the world, study the universe, and study things in a scientific way specifically because there was a Creator who made it all and therefore, it was knowledge. Solomon said in Proverbs [25:2, page 650 of pew Bibles], Its the glory of God to conceal a matter. Its the glory of kings to search it out. Thats what the early scientists believed. Im going to read this other Passage from The Humanist Manifesto as we talk about religion. Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living, religious humanists… This is straight out of the first one. …religious humanists aim to foster the creative in man and encourage achievements that add to the satisfactions of life. In fact at the tail end of the first The Humanist Manifesto, it says this: Do you know what the essence of living here on the earth is? Its to have The Good Life. Isnt that interesting? It sounds like a beer commercial, doesnt it? You only go around once in life, so you have to grab for all the gusto you can. Lets pull the covers over my head. Going back a bit as I remember what I was going to say. You think about that, pretend it isnt there, that foundation of science led to all kinds of horrific experimentations or ways of dealing with illness in the past when like the first President of our country. We didnt know about germs and all those types of things, so what did we do when he was sick with pneumonia? We bleed him, taking away the very thing that he needed, which was his blood. We bleed him, weaken him, and hence he dies because we cant see germs, so they must not exist. The father of modern sanitation Ignaz Semmelweiss got hounded out of two different hospitals because he had the audacity to believe the Bible when it came to performing autopsies and then walking across the floor to maternity wards and delivering babies without washing your hands. When Ignaz Semmelweiss had the audacity to tell the doctors under his care that they needed to wash their hands after performing autopsies and before delivering babies, he got hounded out of two different hospitals and died a broken man. Why? Because science at the time, You cant see it, so it must not be so. Now science tells us, I cant see God, so guess what? It must not be so. Yet, so much of the technical things-lights, heat-all those types of things, so many of the scientific advances that weve enjoyed in the last 150 years are because of things that we cant see. That brings us to motivation. Well get to more specifics later, but lets talk about motivation. Why are people so passionate about the idea that there is no God? I always chuckle at that. Do you get the ridiculousness of that, the incongruity? Theres no God, but Im going to spend my life defined by telling everybody that the thing that I dont believe exists doesnt exist. Let me give you an example. If I believed that purple elephants dont exist, would I spend my life passionately crusading throughout the entire world telling everybody and making sure that everybody knows that purple elephants dont exist? Would I? No, Id just ignore it because I know purple elephants dont exist. Duh! Its hilarious to me that people will say, Oh, God doesnt exist. Guess what? God defines their lives-their whole lives and framework is built around, Theres no God! Theres no God! Theres no God! Theres no God! If we tell ourselves that long enough, maybe well convince ourselves that thats the truth. Pull the blankets up over your head. If you cant see Him, it must not be so. Whats the motivation? Why are people so passionate about that? As we said, its religion. Friends, I am so glad that the Bible is not relevant for today. That was a joke. I was just seeing if you were awake. Way back in Genesis 3, we find the answer to that. This is the foundation of so much religion, so many Eastern religions-even some of the late comers to the modern Americans. What is the crux? Whats the sum total? If I follow this religion, what happens in the end? Here it is: Genesis 3, I get to be God. Why do I stand and shake my fist in the face of God, say He doesnt exist, Hes not out there. Because if Hes not out there, then who is God? Who is king? Whos boss? Whos lord? Me. Im so glad the Bibles not relevant-nailed that in the first three chapters. The serpent comes to Eve in the Garden and says, Take that fruit. Dont listen to God. He doesnt know what Hes talking about because if you eat that fruit, what will happen? You will get to be your own God! Thats the sum total of it. If there is no God, you get to be God. I like poetry. I like literature, and I dont think any poem says it better than the poem they used for the title of a movie this last year. Clint Eastwood directed a movie about the South African rugby team and their quest for a rugby championship. The name of that movie was, Invictus. What you may not know is that is a very famous and well known poem written in 1875 by William Earnest Henley. This poem espouses this philosophy in an amazing way, and I often wonder what was going on in Henleys head. Im not going to speculate about a lot of things, but I know he had a rough background. He had tuberculosis of the bone at a young age. At a young age or pre-modern medicine, he had a leg amputated. Im sure in the late 1800s, that must have been a pretty horrific experience. We can see some of that pain, some of that heartache in the middle of this poem. Lets listen to the words of his poem, Invictus, when he writes, Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole… Now theres a really optimistic world view, right? …I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. Dont gloss over that line. Is he really thanking God? Notice that god is in small letters. Whatever gods might be, who is he really thanking for his unconquerable soul? Who is the god? Himself-youre right. He is. He goes on to say, In the fell clutch of circumstance… Think about losing a leg and the pain he went through, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears… That's what life is to him, a place of wrath and tears. Whats to come? Looms but the Horror of the shade… Now theres a great view of eternity. And yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. Look at that line. If you dont get whats going on here or get poetry very well, get this. When he talks about, It matters not how strait the gate, whats that an illusion to? Jesus said, Strait was the gate that led to…? Heaven, everlasting life. How charged with punishments the scroll, whats that an illusion to? Whats the opposite of Heaven? Hell. Hensley says, I dont care about Heaven, and I dont care about hell. Im the master of my fate. Im the captain of my soul. Im in charge, and no god, nobody else. Im the boss. Im the king. I rule. Im God. Our secular world stands and applauds that. Now it is great poetry, and its great in terms of its artistry, its rhyme scheme. It makes an incredible impact. Its a powerful piece, but philosophically, its awful. Yet, our secular world and secular humanists stand and applaud that. That's the essence of secular humanism. Im the master. Im the captain. Friends, Ill tell you something: after looking at my own life and after 30 years in the ministry and a dozen years as a police chaplain, Ive stood beside grades; Ive stood beside beds; Ive stood beside people in hospitals and jails and watched the utter destruction that people make of their lives when they decide theyre the boss, theyre in charge, and theyre gonna do it as Frank Sinatra sang, My Way. Holding that dear little child in your arms… Ill never forget standing by hospital beds as a police chaplain because I had to tell mothers that their four-year olds just died because they were having illicit drug-laced drunken affairs and killed their own children as a result of their actions. They were so high, and they backed their vans into lakes, and their children drowned. Their lovers drowned. I listened to the parents scream because-well, they were doing their own thing. They made the rules; they wrote the songs. They were in charge, and they reaped the fruit of it. Ill be the first one to tell you that I am so glad that I realize-it didnt take me very long to realize -as a person that Jerry Dean made a really horrible god and I really royally messed my life up. If I was honest with the thoughts that went on in my head as a young person, the perversion, the wickedness, the lust, and the evil… I used to lift weights in just a rage-fueled passion thinking about people that I wanted to kill. That embarrasses me. It shames me to say that. I sit here and think, Yeah, I really deserve to be worshipped as God-really noble stuff, right? Im really in charge. Im really the boss. I spent two years in high school, thinking about killing myself almost every single day. The gloom and the darkness that covered my life were incredible. The pain, the heartache, and the agony because I couldnt find the big answers to the big questions that I wanted-but, friends, out of that, when God finally opened up His Word and showed me His Truth and His light, and I found peace, redemption, hope, and deliverance in Jesus Christ-when I found out that He paid for my sins on the cross and justice was done there, I literally at 23 years old and a pastor already, literally jumped off my couch and almost hit my head on the ceiling because I instantly knew peace. I instantly knew joy. I instantly knew hope in a way that I never had in my whole entire life. I am so glad that I am not my own god. Paul Kurtz in the second Humanist Manifesto writes these words: No god will save us. We must save ourselves. My response to that and many of your responses to that is those two wonderful English words, Balderdash and Hogwash. I did a lousy job at saving myself. If God hadnt reached down and rescued my soul, I would have died a long time ago. I wouldnt be standing here today if it wasnt for the grace, the wonder, and the goodness of a Holy, loving, and gracious God. Many of you would nod your heads and say exactly that same thing, wouldnt you? Friends, Jesus Christ will have the entire universe bow their knees to Him some day. Every tongue will confess that He is the Lord. Hes boss; Hes King. What earned Him that position? Because 2,000 years ago in the Garden of Gethsemane when He faced eternal hell and the wrath and curse of a Holy, righteous, and just God, He had the wisdom to say, Father, whatever You want. Not what I want. Amen? If you know peace, you know hope, and you know joy, and you have hope for eternity, its because your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, His incredible attitude said, God whatever You want. Not what I want. Thats where real power comes from. The amazing thing is when you finally surrender to God and say, Youre the King. Youre the boss, then and only then do you find true freedom and a real hope. As you grow in your walk with Him, you finally find that you become the person that [He wants you to be]. He starts to change you, and you become the person that you hoped you could be. We all have a ways to go, but you see the way God changes, moves, and molds your lives, and your gratitude grows. Friends, I would ask you to take just a minute right here, bow your head with me, and pray that prayer-you alone with God, if you would, say, God, whatever You want. Not what I want. Will you take just a minute to pray that to God right now? Father, we thank You so much for the example of Jesus Christ who prayed, Not My will, but Yours. I pray that we would pray that not just today, but every day, and follow Him. I thank You that we can pray in His name, Amen. Friends, thats the challenge-not to pray that just once, but you will be truly wise if every single day at some point in your life you turn to the God of the universe and say, Youre the boss. Youre the King. Whatever You want. Youll be amazed at how your life will change. The second thing I want to look at is Proverbs 22:3 (page 647 of pew Bibles). It says these words and is repeated in Verse 12:27. Its repeated in many different ways throughout Proverbs, but it says this: A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. A prudent person sees danger and takes precaution. Proverbs 14 says, The wise man looks ahead. The fool attempts to fool himself and wont face the facts. If you asked me today why Im a Christian, I would say it is this more than any single other thing: Christianity faces reality in a way that nothing else does. It faces the farthest look. Do you know in this world if youre trying to get ahead financially, you plan for your future. I always chuckle that over 90 percent of Americans have no more money when they die than when they did at age 18. Why? Incredibly poor planning. They dont look ahead. The Russians, under Stalin, they had their five-year plans and bankrupted the entire country. They couldnt look just five years in the future. They only looked so far ahead. Christians, God tells and challenges Christians to take the long view, the eternal view. I chuckle at this phrase from The Humanist Manifesto, which says, Knowledge is based on the scientific mesh and observations by many impartial witnesses. Now if that is true, and youre honest, what are we all going to face some day? Every single person sitting here will someday face death. You say, Well, I hope the Lord comes back. A while ago, it dawned on me that theyre basically the same thing. If Im ready to die, am I ready for the Lord to come back? Yeah. If Im ready for the Lord to come back, Im ready to die. Its essentially the same thing. Wise people think about that. Now heres something interesting. They say the only way that you can know anything is observation by many impartial witnesses, so lets take them at face value. How many people in white coats have ever experienced life after death or observed it? Never experienced it, never observed it, but we can know for sure that it doesnt exist. On the other hand, and one of the questions Larry asked, whats the difference between Judaism, Christianity and every other religious myth? The reality is history. One of the degrees I have is in history. I am a history geek; Im a history nerd; Im a history junkie. Friends, if I were going to plan my future on something that I wasnt sure that existed, I would like the witness of somebody thats been there, done that, right? So all our experts with letters after their names running around in white coats, they havent been there after death, but I know somebody that has the audacity to claim that He did. Why is Christianity different than every other religion? Because it claims to be historically accurate. One of the most brilliant historians in the British Empire in the last hundred years said, There is more evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ than any single other historical event. Good historians, good experts-people that are willing to study the facts-find out time after time after time that the Bible is true. I could go on and on and on telling you about the greatest British archeologist over the last hundred years, Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, who went to the Middle east to prove-he was knighted by the Queen of England-he was such a touring intellect. He went to the Middle east to prove that the Book of Acts was false. After he retraced the steps of Paul and Luke, he came to the conclusion and wrote that Luke was a historian of the first degree. His Book set the scholastic word on edge. It knocked peoples socks off. They never would have dreamed that, and Ramsay became a Christian as a result of his study of history and the facts. I could go on and on and on and tell you a litany of people who have come to that same conclusion from Lee Strobel, who is an editor of the Chicago Tribune, to CS Lewis, one of the greatest authors of the last hundred years. I could tell you story after story-doctors, scientists, geophysicists. My absolute favorite is Lou Wallace. Ive told a little bit about him before, but Ill tell you this: Lou Wallace was a lawyer from Indiana. He was so brilliant that at 34 years old, he was made a general in the union Army-one of the youngest generals in the Civil War. He was blamed for some of the catastrophes at the Battle of Shiloh and lost his position, but he came to the defense of the City of Cincinnati and set up its defenses; and as a result, he re-attained his rank of general. After the defense of the City of Cincinnati, he came to the attention of the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln called him to Washington, almost as his special envoy, and Lou Wallace became a Civil War hero because he is credited with defending Washington, D.C., against confederate attack and saving the capital. Lou Wallace in his 30s became a national hero, credited with saving Washington, D.C., from capture. You probably didnt know that, did you? He went on after the war to become an author. After he wrote several books, he was writing across the country with one of the leading agnostics of the day-a man named Robert Ingersoll. Ingersoll, in a long spiel in which Wallace says he was charming, eloquent-hed never heard anybody talk like Ingersoll had before-was so logical. Ingersoll challenged Wallace about Christianity and Jesus Christ. Wallace began to research whether, in fact, Christianity was true and that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead. Do you know how long he spent studying that? Lee Strobel spent two years studying Christianity before he was convinced that it was true. Lou Wallace spent seven years, after which he became overwhelmed by the facts, overwhelmed by the evidence. The lawyer, the general, the author could not deny it any longer. He gave his life to Jesus Christ and ended up writing the best seller, Ben Hur. If this guy was alive today, his name would be making headlines almost every single day because Lou Wallaces play, Ben Hur, ran on Broadway for 26 straight years. It was so huge that the chariot race with eight horses was actually redone on stage. He became world famous in an age where Christians didnt read novels or go to the theatre. Christians read Ben Hur. They went to see Ben Hur. It affirmed their faith as it had with Wallace. Again, I could go on and on talking about people like that. The evidence is overwhelming. If I come to face death some day, I want to be in the hands of someone who has been there, done that, and conquered death. Right? I dont want to base my hopes on some, Well, were not quite sure. We havent observed it. The reality is that Paul in his day, speaking of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ-this is almost like an Eastern sermon-maybe were climbing out of the valley-said that Jesus was seen by over 500 witnesses at once, most of whom were still alive. How would that hold up in a court of law today? [Do you] think 500 witnesses on the witness stand might reinforce your case? Paul was so confident of the fact that he said, If youre not sure, go ask Him because most of them are still alive. You can check it out. As Pastor Jeff said last week, Christianity has never been afraid to say, Hey, check it out. I dont have to set my reason aside to embrace faith. In fact, the whole reason that I am a Christian is because I grew up in a very intellectual home. The Christian world view answers all my big questions. Its more logical; its more reasonable than any other philosophy of life Ive ever come across. So God calls us to embrace Truth, to embrace wisdom. What do you know about little kids that is simple? Humanism says you have to test everything out before you can find out if its true. Thats a nice way of saying you have to learn everything the hard way. How many little kids do you know that love vegetables? Maybe there are a few. How many little kids and grandkids do you know that would eat candy non-stop, 24 hours a day, if you allowed them to do that? What would they be like after 25 years, if they were still alive-which they probably would not be? But you need somebody older, wiser who gets the bigger picture a little bit better than they do to say, No, this is not good for you. If you set aside genuine truth and reality, you have to learn everything the hard way, and thats incredibly sad. Christianity is the ultimate look ahead. Paul in Romans 10 says that if youll confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, youll be saved. I love the Passage in Romans 2:7 where he says, There are those who will win eternal life if they continually seek glory, honor, and immortality. I love that phrase. Whats God called us as Christians to do? He calls us to seek for glory, honor, and immortality because all of us are going to face eternity one day. Im banking on someone whos been there, done that-not, Well, were not quite sure. In fact, were pretty confident that this is all there is. That leads us to the next point. My wife shared this Verse with me knowing that I was going to preach about the fool and secular humanism. Isaiah 44:20, we wind it down here, it says these words (page 721), The poor deluded fool feeds on ashes. He trusts something that cant help him at all, yet he cannot bring himself to ask, Is this idol that Im holding in my hand a lie? In spite of all of the arguments, all these protestations that we are impartial observers, secular humanists believe in a religion. Dont buy that nonsense that they are impartial. I always think of Francis Crick, the discoverer of DNA. Ill show you what a geek I am by saying that DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. There, Im a total nerd. In 1983, Francis Crick discovered DNA. Hes an agnostic-pretty confident that God doesnt exist though, and its amazing that as he looks at DNA and studies even more and finds out that in every single cell, there are miles of human DNA. It boggles his mind, and Francis Crick the agnostic, says, Dare we say the word miracle, but of course, Pull the covers over my head cause it couldnt be God. He even uses the word miracle, but, Well, that doesnt fit in to my world view, so Im gonna cross out all knowledge or understanding that God couldve created this because it doesnt fit. Impartial observers? Youve got to be kidding me. Kids believe everything that theyre told. Thats why Jesus said that a child is the model of faith. They believe easily. Sometimes this gets thrown in our faces, You Christians, youre simple. Youre naïve. You believe in God. You also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and when you grow up a little bit more and get more of the facts, youre realize that Gods just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Hes made up. Friends, this is my challenge to you as we wind it down and finish. This is my challenge to you: the God of the universe has the audacity-Isaiah 1-to say, Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord. You dont have to set aside your brain; you dont have to set aside your intellect. You dont have to set aside your logic. One of my favorite courses-you dont have to set aside your wisdom when you come to God. In fact, I am a Christian because wisdom, intellect, logic, and reason buttresses everything in the Word of God. The more I study, the more I see, the more I learn, the more I understand, I am amazed at the Truth of this Book and the wisdom of the Holy and Almighty God. God challenges us to think. In fact, I shake my head at our loss of history. When we have schools precisely in America because schools were built to teach young children how to read the Word of God, and 9 out of the 10 Ivy League schools-you can check it out and look it up-were started as? Religions seminaries to train preachers. Everywhere the Word of God goes, what happens? The advancement of science, wisdom, human reasoning, and logic follows. Why are dictators so afraid of the Word of God? Why are they so afraid of Christianity? Because they know that everywhere Christianity goes, it brings freedom. It brings real thinking. People dont just dumbly sit and go, A-ha, a-ha, a-ha, a-ha. They actually learn to think for themselves. One of favorite moments as a dad-one of my proudest moments as a parent-my oldest daughter was invited to a home of some Jehovahs Witnesses to discuss religion, and it was really interesting. Going back to the second one, one of the questions they got in to a discussion about was Heaven and hell, and the Jehovahs Witnesses believe there are three levels and 144,000 go to the highest level of Heaven. Then theres the middle ground that the rest of the Jehovahs Witnesses go to. Then theres the new earth, which all the good people go to. If youre really horrible, you just get annihilated. I was so proud of my daughter. She said, You know? If youre right and Im wrong, big deal. The worst that could happen to me… Remember for some of you in management, if youre planning, what do you plan for? You always plan for worst case scenarios; so worst case scenario, what happens? I get annihilated. Whoop-de-do. But if Im a pretty good person, then where do I spend eternity? On new earth, not so bad. Then she said, But if Im right, and youre wrong, youre in trouble. Then they said, Well, you believe what you believe because your parents told you that. The young lady who was my daughters age said, You know, the only reason I believe what I believe is because my parents told me that, and I was so proud of my daughter. She said, No, no, no, no, no, no. I dont buy it just cause my dad says it. In fact, she said, My dad tells me all the time, Dont you dare believe it just because I tell you that. She said, My dad tells me all the time, Look it up. Check it out. Search history; search science; search the facts; search ethics; search logically; search the Word of God. You find out if its true. I was so proud of her! Friends, thats what Im telling you. Im telling you follow in the footsteps of CS Lewis. Follow in the footsteps of Lou Wallace. Follow in the footsteps of Lee Strobel. Check it out for yourself. Dont you buy it just because Jerry Dean says it or Pastor Jeff says it-even though I love Pastor Jeff, sorry. Thats not blasphemy. Paul said, If I or you or any other angel preached you anything other than the Word of God, let them be accursed. It used to just trip my trigger in a church I was at before. I was there for a couple years, and Id walk by groups of people and hear people say, Well, Jerry said this, and Jerry said that. Thats why I have no hair anymore. Id pull it out. Id go, No, you dont get it! Its not Jerry said this or Jerry said that. The only reason to buy it is if God says it. If God doesnt say it, you can check everything else Jerry Dean says. Friends, I conclude with this: truly wise people search. Truly wise people think. Gods not afraid of the big questions. Revelation 1:6 (page 1215) says that God has called us to be kings and priests. I love the Passage in Proverbs [25:2, page 650] that says, Its the glory of God to conceal things. Its the glory of kings to search them out. As a king and a priest in Gods Kingdom, what does God call you to do? Search for Truth. Hit the books! Pray like Solomon, God, give me a large and understanding heart. Open my mind. Teach me Your ways. Teach me wisdom. Give me knowledge. Give me understanding. Im not content with where I am. I want answers! Teach me. Show me. And you can bank on it that if you do that, He will. Ill close with one last Passage from the Word of God, Deuteronomy 17:18-19 (page 189). When a new king came to the thrown in Israel, do you know what his first official act of state was? God said, Hes supposed to write his own personal copy of the Word of God. Secondly, he was supposed to read in it every day all the days of his life. Friends, you are most like the king and queen that God chose you to be when you search and devour. Solomon said, If you search for wisdom and seek for her as for hidden treasure, then you will get real understanding. You will get real knowledge. You will gain real wisdom. Itll impact you both in this life and in the life to come. Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the Truth. We thank You for each one of these who are Your people. I pray that You would teach us, help us to grow and learn and challenge us to seek You, to pursue You, to not be afraid of the big questions. We thank You for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ and the way Youve changed our lives. I ask Your blessing on each one here, and if theres someone who doesnt know You, that maybe today they will confess that You are in fact Lord and trust that Jesus rose from the dead, even today, and find new life and a new hope. I thank You that we can pray in Jesus name, Amen.

One of the most controversial and influential philosophers alive today, Peter Singer is DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne. He writes a regular column for Free Inquiry magazine, and is the author of dozens of books, including Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, Animal Liberation, and Writings on an Ethical Life. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Peter Singer defends vegetarianism, arguing that we should give equal consideration to all "beings who have interests." He draws ethical distinctions between human fetuses and animals, such as dogs and cats. He argues against "dominionism," which is the idea that humanity is special, and that other animals were made by God for humanity's benefit. He attacks "speciesism," and explains why he did not sign the Humanist Manifesto 2000. He describes factory farming, and the commercial imperatives that he says cause animals to be treated as mere property. He talks about the decision to become a vegetarian, and what keeps secularists and scientists from making the decision, in terms of the question he posed to Richard Dawkins at a recent Center for Inquiry conference. And he considers how working with the religious may advance vegetarianism in society.

What is humanism and what dangers does it pose to the Christian?

The Human race is destined to progress. This idea has come to dominate modern thought. Man will be his own salvation through science and democracy. Belief in God is not only seen as irrelevant, it is positively harmful. Enlightenment thinking which began 300 years ago has come to dominate the Western World. Its ideas were formally codified in the 1933 Humanist Manifesto.