The primary purpose of this blog is to explore the intellectual and moral basis of political systems. But there is a lot more. Here marks the confluence of economics, politics, religion, biblical eschatology, reason, and evidence.
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Bible Prophecy, Syria, and Politics
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Bible prophecy pundits are out in force again with the possible strikes against Syria. Such news sites as The Blaze and World Net Daily have recently featured articles suggesting that the Bible predicted what is happening now in the twenty-first century. World War III is in the making. Jesus is coming soon, and the end of world is just around the corner.
They base this latest idiocy in part on Isaiah 17:1-3 which prophesied the destruction of Damascus, the capital city of Syria. It matters not to these people that Damascus was conquered more than once in ancient times, fulfilling the prophecy. The most likely fulfillment was in 732 BC when a tyrant named Tiglath-Pileser III captured and destroyed the city.
As I detail in my book CHRISTIAN HOPE THROUGH FULFILLED PROPHECY: Is Your Church Teaching Error about the Last Days and Second Coming?, some Christians have been using news events to predict the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world for 2000 years. They are always wrong because they haven't studied the Bible.
Interestingly, Jesus told us that all Old Testament prophecy would be fulfilled in his literal generation. See Luke 21:22. (Compare to Luke 21:32.) Peter, in Acts 3:24, affirmed this view when he said that all the Old Testament prophets from Samuel onward were predicting the events happening in the first century. In fact, there are over 100 passages of the Bible that demand that the prophesied events were fulfilled in the first century! (Don't take my word for it; check it out for yourself.)
Why is this important? There are several reasons, including: (1) All of these false predictions make Christians look stupid. (2) Many Christians don't get involved in the culture because they think the end is near.
These views are more prevalent than you might think. This is a prominent theme on Christian radio and TV. A 2012 survey showed that an astounding 65% of evangelical Protestants in the U.S. thought that the severity of recent natural disasters was evidence the world was coming to an end, as predicted in the Bible. Statistics also show that liberals often win elections because conservative Christians fail to vote. Their fatalistic attitude about eschatology (the study of "last things") is certainly a factor in this failure.
Want to learn more? Check out my book at Amazon:
CHRISTIAN HOPE
Sincerely and hopefully,
Charles Meek
Off Grid Blogger
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The utopian perfectibility that liberals crave is detrimental to society--indeed, not even possible by government edict or by any human effort. Liberals are deceived in thinking they are working for good. The welfare state, while well-intentioned, institutionalizes indolence and poverty--and is thereby immoral. The result of the welfare state is not true charity; rather it is theft from one group to benefit another group in order to keep the latter on the dole for political votes.
While a just society will seek equality of opportunity and appropriate assistance for the truly needy, liberal redistribution schemes ultimately hurt both the recipients and the contributors. Wealth redistribution forced by the heavy hand of the state distorts the moral arrangement between parties when charity is freely given. There is a difference between a hand-up and a hand-out.
Biblically ordered liberty is moral. But liberalism in any of its forms, properly understood, is tyrannical. All forms of utopian statism have as their root the need to control other people by edict rather than by conscience. Statism is inherently inefficient, produces little, takes resources from the productive economy, and is therefore detrimental to growth and the welfare of a society.
Liberalism has everything turned on it head. It punishes achievement but rewards failure. Liberal thought is often opposed to objective moral values and is opposed to a moral authority above itself. Thus liberal thought says that rights come from government, rather the American ideal of unalienable rights from God. It is demonstrably true that little is sacred with liberalism outside of one's personal subjective feelings or political power--not the Bible, not the Constitution, not the Rule of Law, not natural law, nor even life itself.
Thus liberalism is the least likely system to honor the inherent worth of the individual, and the most likely to harm the most vulnerable in society such as the expendable elderly and the innocent unborn. Liberals' profession of tolerance is hypocritical as liberals certainly do not tolerate opposition to their errant views. Liberals are tolerant until you disagree; then you become a racist hillbilly. Indeed, the further left a society progresses the more it is intolerant and destructive--a fact proven time and again by history.
While liberals may be moral and well-intentioned in their own lives, their views are not consistent with what is good. In actuality liberals are working to tear down or distort everything that is good and elevate what is evil--including in art, music, culture, business, politics, science, sexuality, education, truth, beauty, justice, morality, and logic. So ironically liberalism is neither moral, compassionate, tolerant, nor effective. Christian capitalism is the most moral, leads to the most freedom, and produces the most economic benefits for society.
"One of the greatest mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results." --Milton Friedman
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If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? --Psalm 11:3
Redeem us, Oh Lord, from man's oppression. Make your enemies like whirling dust, like chaff before the wind. --Psalms 83:13; 119:124
With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered. --Proverbs 11:9
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The liberal agenda has as its center piece the twin goals of compassion and fairness. However noble these goals may be, the dirty little secret of liberalism is that behind this respectable front, liberal policies actually produce the opposite!
For liberals, America is a 200+ year-old mistake. What liberals really want is the destruction of institutions that promote true compassion and fairness--including the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Rule of Law, natural law, Biblical Christianity, frugal and responsible government, and traditional western values. Their unstated goals are control and cronyism--ultimately the obliteration of anything that gets in their way of their lust of power.
Liberal politics by its nature is divisive and unfair, promoting envy and covetousness among groups of citizens. Its beneficiaries are largely arbitrary and may include young men in baggy pants with their hats on backwards (sitting in front of a TV all day)--as well as the single moms around town that these studs impregnated. But just as easily liberal cronyism will cull other groups for support including union bosses, abortionists, bankrupting solar executives, or guilt-ridden movie stars.
The "C" words for liberalism do not include compassion. But they do include control, confiscation, and covetousness!
Government intervention leads to dependency, which creates indolence, which produces economic stagnation. The absolute worst thing that public policy could do for an economy (or for the individuals involved--at EITHER end of the economic spectrum) is to reduce the incentive to work, but this is EXACTLY what liberal policies do!
Liberals are mistaken in their idea that the economy is a pie to be divided up by government. The economy is a dynamic entity which grows by innovation and human effort. Only policies which promote growth ultimately benefit a society, including the poor.
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