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El caso de la historicidad y Deidad de Jesús

En un mundo lleno de gente escéptica sobre las afirmaciones de la Biblia relacionadas con Jesús, a veces es útil revisar el caso acumulativo de la historicidad y la deidad de Cristo. Al igual que todos los casos colectivos, el poder del argumento se basa en el conjunto robusto de evidencias históricas. He reunido algunas de ellas en esta entrada del blog:

Antiguos historiadores no cristianos están de acuerdo en que Jesús vivió

Antiguos historiadores “paganos”, escribieron acerca de Jesús, sus seguidores y las declaraciones de estos historiadores y escritores corroboran las afirmaciones de la Biblia relacionadas con Jesús:

  1. El libro de las crónicas de Talo (52 d.C.)
  2. El libro de las crónicas de Plinio el Joven (61-113 d.C.)
  3. El libro de las crónicas de Suetonio (69-140 d.C.)
  4. El libro de las crónicas de Tácito (56 – 120 d.C.)
  5. El libro de las crónicas de Mara Bar-Serapion (70 d.C.)
  6. El libro de las crónicas de Phlegon (80-140 d.C.)
  7. El libro de las crónicas de Luciano de Samosata: (115-200 d.C.)
  8. Registro histórico de Celso (175 d.C.)

Los historiadores Judíos antiguos están de acuerdo que Jesús vivió

Aunque la mayoría de los recuentos Judíos antiguos de Jesús son hostiles, todavía afirman mucho acerca de la historicidad de Jesús, incluso a medida que tratan de difamar su carácter:

  1. El libro de las crónicas de Josefo (37-101d.C.)
  2. El libro de las crónicas del Talmud judío (400-700 d.C.)
  3. El libro de las crónicas de El Toldot Yeshu (1000 d.C.)

Jesús afirmó ser Dios

Aunque algunos escépticos niegan que Jesús nunca se identificó como Dios a su audiencia del primer siglo, la evidencia demuestra lo contrario:

  1. Él prologó de sus declaraciones como si fuera Dios (Mateo 5:18)
  2. Se identificó con el nombre propio de Dios: “Yo soy” (Juan 8:49-58)
  3. Él hablaba como si él era igual a Dios (Juan 14:6-9)
  4. Dijo que él y Dios eran uno (Juan 10:25-29)

Jesús demostró que tenía la naturaleza de Dios

Jesús poseía una autoridad única con los que le conocieron, una autoridad que superó con creces la de otros rabinos importantes. La autoridad de Jesús se basó en su divinidad:

  1. Demostró Omnisciencia (Juan 4:16-30)
  2. Demostró Omnipresencia (Mateo 28:20)
  3. Demostró Omnipotencia (Juan 11:38-44, Marcos 06:48)

Jesús fue adorado como Dios por aquellos que lo conocieron

En una cultura judía de principios de siglo que rechazaba la adoración de nadie (o nada) que no sea el único y verdadero Dios, Jesús fue varias veces adorado por los que lo encontraron:

  1. Los magos sabios lo adoraron en su nacimiento (Mateo 2:10-12)
  2. El leproso le adoró cuando lo curó (Mateo 08:02)
  3. El jefe de la sinagoga le adoró (Mateo 9:18-19 )
  4. Los discípulos lo adoraron en la barca (Mateo 14:32-33)
  5. La madre de Santiago y Juan lo adoraron (Mateo 20:20-21)
  6. El ciego le adoró cuando lo curó ( Juan 9:35-38)
  7. Las mujeres lo adoraron en la tumba vacía (Mateo 28:8-10)

Jesús cumplió las profecías mesiánicas del Antiguo Testamento

Los discípulos y los primeros testigos de Jesús, fueron repetidamente sorprendidos en varias ocasiones por el número de maneras en que Jesús cumplió las profecías del Antiguo Testamento en relación con la venida del Mesías:

  1. El Mesías aparecerá después de que los Judíos regresen a Israel (Jeremías 23:3-6)
  2. El Mesías nacería en Belén (Miqueas 5:2)
  3. El Mesías sería precedido por un mensajero (Isaías 40:3)
  4. El Mesías entraría en Jerusalén, mientras viajaba en un asno (Zacarías 9:09)
  5. El Mesías iba a sufrir y ser rechazado (Isaías 53:3)
  6. El Mesías sería traicionado por 30 piezas de plata (Zacarías 11:12-13)
  7. El Mesías sería silenciado ante sus acusadores (Isaías 53:7)
  8. El Mesías sería herido, azotado y crucificado (Isaías 53:5)

El caso acumulativo de la historicidad y la deidad de Jesús es demasiado convincente cuando se ve en su totalidad. Este breve articulo un recordatorio útil para probar que La cosmovisión (Creencia) cristiana es evidentemente verificable.

 

J. Warner Wallace es autor de Cold-Case Christianity, tiene una trayectoria de más de 25 años como policía y detective, posee un Master en Teología por el Seminario Teológico Golden Gate Baptist y es profesor adjunto de Apologética en la universidad de BIOLA.

Blog Original: http://bit.ly/2NqoPXA

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Turek-Shermer Debate: Is Morality Better Explained by God or Science?

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Last week our friends at NewYorkApologetics.com hosted a debate on morality between me and Dr. Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine. You can see the raw streaming video from the debate here (a three camera professional video is forthcoming, but I’m not sure when).

You’ll notice that while both Michael and I agree that there are objective moral values, I am more interested in explaining why objective moral values exist (ontology), whereas Michael is more interested in how we know them (epistemology).  Of course, before you can know something it has to exist (this is the difference between the “order of being” and the “order of knowing”).  So why do objective moral values exist?  What grounds them (what is their foundation)?   I’ll leave it to you to judge who made the better case. (The first 30 minutes is just pre-debate happenings; you may want to skip that to get the opening statements).

Please tune in this morning at 10:05 am ET because I’ll be interviewing Michael Shermer for the full hour on CrossExamined radio.  If you miss the interview, please download the app.  It should be posted there by Monday.

(A special thanks goes out to Nick Mitchell and Anthony Uvenio of NewYorkApologetics.com who did a superb job organizing the debate and all the ensuing events in New York.  Want to learn how they did it?  Join them and others at CIA this year.  Hope to see you there.)

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El sexo es la nueva religión

Por Frank Turek

El sexo es la nueva religión en los Estados Unidos, y es la religión de la espada. Esta es la verdadera razón por la que esta controversia ha aumentado en Indiana. Una minoría vociferante y determinada de la religión del sexo está intimidando y la talando tradicionalistas quienes necesitan una ley que les permita que se les deje en paz. Este choque de ortodoxias tiene valores opuestos con moralistas en ambos lados exigiendo sus derechos.

Un lado dice, “todo el mundo debe celebrar mi matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo” (una posición moral).  Y el otro dice, “Dios o mi conciencia me impide hacerlo” (que es también una posición moral).  ¿Alguien puede ver una posición neutral aquí? No hay ninguna. Por lo tanto, la pregunta es ¿al “derecho” moral de quien se le dará prioridad?

Los Gobernadores de Indiana, Arkansas y varios otros estados ven la necesidad de proteger la libertad religiosa por una muy buena razón de que —está siendo atacada. La balanza se inclina decididamente contra el libre ejercicio de la religión tradicional— y contra el derecho de los cristianos, musulmanes, judíos y cualquier otra persona quien no se  celebre la ortodoxia de la nueva religión.

Olvídate de la tolerancia. Esto va más allá de la tolerancia. Ahora, si usted no está de acuerdo con celebrar el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo, los creyentes en la religión del sexo comenzarán una inquisición y, sin un juicio justo, te castigaran por tu herejía. Es por eso que esta legislación es necesaria. Floristerías y pastelerías, fotógrafos, agentes de de bienes raíces, CEOs de compañías de Internet y los conferencistas como yo han descubierto personalmente que todas las personas que dicen que están luchando por “tolerancia” son a menudo las más intolerantes. En el nombre de la “inclusión y diversidad”, aquellos de nosotros que tenemos una diversa vista estamos siendo excluidos, y hasta despedidos y multados porque no violamos nuestras creencias para satisfacer al opresivo clero de la religión del sexo.

Hace un par de años Cisco y Bank of America me despidieron de mi puesto de consultor de formación debido a que ha que tengo creencias conservadoras sobre el sexo y el matrimonio aunque mis creencias nunca fueron expresadas en el trabajo. Cuando un gerente homosexual de Cisco se dio cuenta en la internet de que yo habia escrito un libro dando dando pruebas de que mantener la definición del matrimonio natural sería lo mejor para la sociedad, el no me pudo tolerar y exigió que me despidan. Un HR ejecutivo me corrió a pocas horas sin tan  siquiera hablar conmigo. Esto ocurrió a pesar del hecho que los programas de liderazgo y la formación de equipos que yo dirigía siempre recibían altas calificaciones (incluso del gerente homosexual!).

Mientras que probablemente estoy entre la minoría, creo que la gente tiene el derecho a elegir con quien quiere hacer negocios. En otras palabras, yo apoyo el derecho de Cisco de despedirme. Mi problema, como lo he explicado aquí, es que ellos falsamente afirman ser “incluyentes y diversos”, cuando son cualquier otra cosa menos eso. Su ortodoxia es tan cerrada y estrecha como la iglesia más rabiosamente fundamentalista.

Mis amigos David y Jason Benham  están de acuerdo con la libertad de asociación y los derechos de las empresas. Cuando los miembros de la religión del sexo aprendieron que los  hermanos Benham los cuales son evangélicos estaban violando su ortodoxia por ser pro-vida y pro-matrimonio natural, una inquisición comenzó para obtener que los Benhams fueran despedidos su programa de televisión. Los ejecutivos de HGTV en última instancia cedieron a las exigencias de estos sacerdotes dogmáticos y cancelaron su programa de televisión, que ya estaba en producción. Cuando Jason Benham le dijo a un reportero de televisión que HGTV tenía el derecho de despedirlos, el reportero quedó boquiabierto. La Benhams son en realidad tolerantes! También lo son la mayoría de cristianos (aunque hay algunas manzanas podridas en cada grupo).

Por alguna razón la gente esta teniendo la impresión equivocada sobre estas leyes estatales que buscan proteger la libertad religiosa. (No es que los medios de comunicación cada momento vaya a tergiversar una cuestión relacionada con la homosexualidad—todos sabemos lo justos y equilibrados que son.) Este gráfico muestra como trabajan estas leyes. Te darás cuenta que no permiten que las empresas nieguen a cualquier persona servicio en un establecimiento de venta. Nadie esta haciendo eso, y no se podría estar en el mundo de los negocios si haces eso por mucho tiempo. El mercado libre, se encargaría de ello. Por otra parte, aquellos que realmente siguen a Jesús quieren estar y servir en medio de aquellos que no creen como lo hizo Jesús. Nosotros simplemente no podemos promover eventos o ideas que van contra la enseñanza de Cristo sobre el matrimonio (Mateo 19:4).

La verdad es que las leyes no son espadas, sino más bien escudos. Y su intención es de proteger  a aquellos que forman parte de las religiones tradicionales de los de la religión del sexo, que les gustaría utilizar la espada de gobierno para obligar a los  tradicionalistas a participar en ceremonias que van en contra de su religión o su conciencia. En otras palabras, las leyes están diseñadas para prevenir la discriminación contra los tradicionalistas, no para permitirles discriminar contra las personas en la religión del sexo.

Estados Unidos tiene una larga historia de equilibrar con éxito una gran variedad de creencias religiosas y morales con otros intereses importantes. Por ejemplo, aun cuando el cumplimiento del servicio militar fue involuntario, se les daba suficiente libertad a que los objetores concienzudos quienes no quisieran llevar armas.  Si se le permite a la gente quedar exentos de defender al país— lo cual es la responsabilidad más importante de nuestro gobierno—sin duda se puede permitir a las personas que estén exentas de realizar ceremonias de las bodas  entre personas del mismo sexo!

¿Qué atractivo o interés tiene el gobierno en forzar a alguien a apoyar una boda entre personas del mismo sexo? No es que exista una escasez de personas dispuestas a hacerlo. Si una abuelita de 70 años la cual es una florista no quiere arreglar flores para tu boda del mismo sexo, ¿por qué no ir a una persona que estaría encantada de hacerlo? (¿es de verdad tan difícil de encontrar a una floristería gay?) ¿Por qué nunca escuchamos acerca de tradicionalistas demandando a los dueños de negocios gay por negarse a imprimir volantes contra el matrimonio gay? ¿Por qué es la “tolerancia” sólo una calle de un solo sentido para la religión del sexo?

¿Debería un proveedor de comida para eventos musulmán estar obligado a hacer una boda del mismo sexo? ¿Debería un fabricante de camisetas musulmán verse obligado a imprimir camisetas de orgullo gay o para aquellos que satirizan a Mahoma? (La religión del sexo preferiría que no usáramos a los musulmanes en nuestras preguntas, limitémonos a hablar de los Cristianos, por favor.)

No existe interés convincente del gobierno para forzar a un negocio a hacer una boda o imprimir algo que vaya en contra de sus creencias. Es por eso que la religión del sexo está distorsionando los hechos y hace berrinche para que el gobierno obligue a la gente a violar su conciencia. (Su enfoque me recuerda a los malos predicadores/pastores que escriben notas en los márgenes de su sermón: “lógica débil aquí—debo de golpear ¡púlpito!”) Al parecer, la religión del sexo simplemente no puede tolerar el hecho de que algunas personas no aceptan sus falsas doctrinas de fe.

Desearía que hubiese una posición de compromiso aquí, pero no la hay. Tenemos dos valores opuestos en conflicto directo. La religión del sexo valora la espada de la compulsión gubernamental sobre la libertad de religión y de conciencia. ¿Y tú?

 

Este artículo también está disponible en Inglés aquí: Sex is the New Religion

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. QUALITY OR QUANTITY “Fully 85 percent of your happiness in life will come from happy relationships with other people, especially those closest to you, as well as the members of your family. The critical determinant of the quality of your relationships is the amount of time that you spend face-to-face with the people you love, and who love you in return.”

Rule: It is the quality of time at work that counts and the quantity of time at home that matters.

Excerpt From: Tracy, Brian. “Eat That Frog!.”

  1. LEGACY “If you walk away from the truth, the linkage to the gospel may be severed for your descendents. Is there anything in life that is more important than that?”

Excerpt From: Dobson, James. “Your Legacy.”

  1. THE BIBLE “Isn’t it interesting that the Book of Exodus, which was written nearly 3,600 years ago, is still relevant to our lives today? It is because the biblical text was “God-breathed.” It was written by forty authors over a course of 1,500 years, on three continents and in three languages. There has never been another book like the Bible, yet it has been banned in public schools, in most universities, and in the public square.”

Excerpt From: Dobson, James. “Your Legacy.”

  1. ATTITUDE  “The last of the human freedoms [is] to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” — Victor Frankl
  2. LIFE’S FAST PACE “There is more to life than just increasing its speed.”

–GANDHI

  1. ULTIMATE CHOICE “We don’t choose where or when to be born. We don’t choose where or when to die. But we do choose how to live in between.”    –Unknown
  2. HABITS “The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably, thought and act.”

–ORISON SWETT MARDEN

  1. PRAISE OVER CRITICISM “In the early nineteenth century, a young man in London aspired to be a writer. But everything seemed to be against him. He had never been able to attend school more than four years. His father had been flung in jail because he couldn’t pay his debts, and this young man often knew the pangs of hunger. Finally, he got a job pasting labels on bottles of blacking in a rat-infested warehouse, and he slept at night in a dismal attic room with two other boys—guttersnipes from the slums of London. He had so little confidence in his ability to write that he sneaked out and mailed his first manuscript in the dead of night so nobody would laugh at him. Story after story was refused. Finally the great day came when one was accepted. True, he wasn’t paid a shilling for it, but one editor had praised him. One editor had given him recognition. He was so thrilled that he wandered aimlessly around the streets with tears rolling down his cheeks. The praise, the recognition, that he received through getting one story in print, changed his whole life, for if it hadn’t been for that encouragement, he might have spent his entire life working in rat-infested factories. You may have heard of that boy. His name was Charles Dickens. Use of praise instead of criticism is the basic concept of B. F. Skinner’s teachings. This great contemporary psychologist has shown by experiments with animals and with humans that when criticism is minimized and praise emphasized, the good things people do will be reinforced and the poorer things will atrophy for lack of attention. Excerpt From: Carnegie, Dale. “How To Win Friends & Influence People.”
  2. SELF-DISCIPLINE “Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.” — Elbert Hubbard
  3. NOW “There’s no time like the present and there’s no present like the time.” –Unknown
  4. FAILURE’S TRICK “Before success comes in any man’s life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat, and, perhaps, some failure. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to QUIT. That is exactly what the majority of men do.

Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one when success is almost within reach.

One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat.”

Excerpt From: Hill, Napoleon. “Think and Grow Rich.”

 

 

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. BOOKER T. INSIGHT ON SLAVERY “Yet while a race remembers and relives its sufferings and wrongs, it is often unwittingly transformed, often into the very image of its oppressor. Moreover, bitterness anchors the mind in the past and takes the heart with it. There is no future and no sense of the possible. There is only the incessant churning. Soon it becomes an excuse, a room into which the heart can run to find justification for failure and wrongs of its own. The end comes after the isolation and the rage have run their course. Bitterness is the second sting of the wound, and its fruit is death.

If his people gave in to such a fate, there would be no day of destiny, no uplift from the bog of slavery. Instead, there would be slums, race wars, poverty, cold distance from the white man and the comforting ooze of anything that deadened the mind and masked the pain. They would never show their worth, never achieve their best, and never give the next generation a higher plane from which to launch into a new day. Then the haters would seem to be right. Black people would indeed be worthless, for bitterness makes impotent all that it touches.

So Washington determined to drive the spirit of bitterness from his people. He had been a slave and he knew that there were “cruel wrongs inflicted upon us.” He admitted these openly, but he also begged his people to remember that the God who loved them had a plan for turning the horror to good. The Negro had come into slavery the pagan property of white people. Now the Negro was a Christian and an American with a ballot in hand. There was good that had come out of the tragedy and blacks “should not permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

Excerpt From: Mansfield, Stephen. “Then Darkness Fled.”

  1. PERSEVERANCE “You outlive your darkest day. In other words, failure can never be your destination. In adverse circumstances, you must remind yourself that this day is not your last. You must look for a destination beyond the devastation.”

Excerpt From: “Coach K’s Key Words for Success”

  1. PROGRESS “Progress is impossible if you only attempt to do the things you have always done.”

Excerpt From: “Coach K’s Key Words for Success”

  1. WINSOME “Wouldn’t you like to have a magic phrase that would stop arguments, eliminate ill feeling, create good will, and make the other person listen attentively?

Yes? All right. Here it is: “I don’t blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do.”

An answer like that will soften the most cantankerous old cuss alive. And you can say that and be 100 percent sincere, because if you were the other person you, of course, would feel just as he does.”

Excerpt From: Carnegie, Dale. “How To Win Friends & Influence People.”

  1. HAVE A PLAN “An average plan vigorously executed is far better than a brilliant plan on which nothing is done.”

Excerpt From: Tracy, Brian. “Eat That Frog!”

  1. FLOOD OF FAITH “God informed Noah of His plan: He was going to destroy the world with a flood. So for one hundred and twenty years, by faith, Noah followed the Lord’s leading. He gathered the materials, he built the ark, probably to the ridicule of everyone around him. After all, this was a world that had never known rain; the earth was watered from beneath. And while Noah was building this ark, he was preaching righteousness to those around him. . . . Surrounded and mocked by his depraved . . . contemporaries, this preacher of righteousness, by faith, stood against the tide of his culture.”

Excerpt From: Charles R. Swindoll. “Wisdom for the Way.”

  1. FAILURE = SUCCESS “My personal rule is “Get it 80 percent right and then correct it later.” Run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. Don’t expect perfection the first time or even the first few times. Be prepared to fail over and over before you get it right.

The biggest enemies we have to overcome on the road to success are not a lack of ability and a lack of opportunity but fears of failure and rejection and the doubts that they trigger. The only way to overcome your fears is to “do the thing you fear,” as Emerson wrote, “and the death of fear is certain.”

Excerpt From: Tracy, Brian. “Eat That Frog!.”

  1. LIFE’S CHALLENGES Imagine yourself on a stormy night all alone in your TV room watching a horror film. You are captivated by fear – if only imaginary – and your focus is completely on the plot and images right in front of you.  You are drawn in to the point of obsession. Now imagine that same film playing in your living room – in the background – on a sunny Sunday afternoon as you are in the kitchen baking cookies and talking with family or occasionally on the phone as the oven readies the treats. That is what scary things/problems in our lives are like. We can be totally focused and obsessed with our problems to the exclusion of all else, or we can know that there are always difficult situations in our lives that we must handle.  They are always going on in the background, but we cannot let them continually dominate our attention to the exclusion of other responsibilities and pleasures in life.

–Unknown

  1. PRAYERS ANSWERED “On some occasions my prayers were answered the way I wanted. At other times He seemed to say, “Not now,” or “No,” or simply “Wait.” This third reply is the most difficult to accept.”

Excerpt From: Dobson, James. “Your Legacy.”

  1. CONFRONT EVIL  “The issues of the world must be met and met squarely. The forces of evil do not disdain preparation, they are always prepared and always preparing.”

— C. Coolidge

 

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. ABE “A close friend of Abe Lincoln, Joshua Speed, published Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, which includes a story from 1864 when he visited Lincoln:

When I knew [Mr. Lincoln], in early life, he was a skeptic. He had tried hard to be a believer, but his reason could not grasp and solve the great problem of redemption as taught. He was very cautious never to give expression to any thought or sentiment that would grate harshly upon a Christian’s ear. For a sincere Christian, he had great respect. . . . But this was a subject we never discussed. The only evidence I have of any change, was in the summer before he was killed. I was invited out to the Soldier’s Home to spend the night. As I entered the room, near night, he was sitting near a window intently reading his Bible. Approaching him I said, “I am glad to see you so profitably engaged.” “Yes,” said he, “I am profitably engaged.” “Well,” said I, “if you have recovered from your skepticism, I am sorry to say that I have not.” Looking me earnestly in the face and placing his hand on my shoulder, he said, “You are wrong, Speed. Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man.” Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”

  1. STRENGTH  “The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

553. PLAN “If everything goes as planned, you don’t have a story.” –Unknown

554. WW II WEAPON “We all know that books burn—yet we have the greater knowledge that books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory. No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever. No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man’s eternal fight against tyranny of every kind. In this war, we know, books are weapons.

Excerpt From: Molly Guptill Manning. “When Books Went to War.”

  1. WARNING “A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished from its edges.” — Benjamin Franklin
  2. LEGACY Jonathan Edwards, born in 1703, was perhaps the most brilliant thinker America has ever produced. Even though he and his wife had 11 children, he invested one hour each day into their lives.

Of his known descendants:

– 300 became pastors and missionaries

– 120 became university professors

– 110 became lawyers

– 60 were prominent authors

– 30 were judges

– 13 served as presidents of colleges and universities

– 3 served inThe US Congress

– 1 became Vice President of the United States

  1. MENTORS “If you want a year of prosperity, grow grain.

If you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees.

If you want one hundred years of prosperity, grow people.”

—CHINESE PROVERB

  1. NEXT GENERATION “Relay races are usually won or lost in the passing of the baton. So it is with the Christian life. When members of one generation are committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and are determined to finish strong, they rarely fumble the baton. But getting the handoff securely in the hands of children can be difficult and risky. That is when Christian commitments between generations can be dropped. It isn’t always the fault of the parents. Some young runners refuse to reach out and grasp the baton. Either way, there is nothing more tragic than failing to transfer the baton to those who come after.”

Excerpt From: Dobson, James. “Your Legacy.”

  1.  CLOTHING “Our culture has sacrificed the innocence of our youth on the altar of sexual glorification. It’s no longer about selling clothes; it’s more about selling our souls. We decry the way our wives and daughters are disparaged over their body images and seen as sexual objects, yet promulgate the very lifestyles and clothing lines that lead to the thing we denounce. We have become a schizophrenic society.”

Excerpt From: Battaglia, Joe. “The Politically Incorrect Jesus.”

  1. HUMILITY [Booker T.] Washington’s humility was not merely a matter of principle and theological abstraction. It was practical, working itself out in the fabric of his life, in the daily and the mundane of his existence. Once when he was staying in a Des Moines hotel, a woman guest mistook him for a porter and asked him to fetch her a drink of water. Washington was at that moment a leading educator, an internationally renowned author, an adviser to governments, and arguably the most famous black man in the world. But he didn’t hesitate. He immediately went to the hotel’s front desk to ask for the water. He felt no offense because true humility removes the sting of the common.

Excerpt From: Mansfield, Stephen. “Then Darkness Fled.”

 

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Sex is the New Religion

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Sex is the new religion in America, and it’s a religion of the sword. That’s the real reason this controversy has risen in Indiana. A determined and vocal minority from the religion of sex is bullying and cutting down traditionalists who need a law that would allow them to be left alone. This clash of orthodoxies has opposing values with moralists on both sides demanding their rights.

One side says, “everyone must celebrate my same-sex marriage” (a moral position). And the other side says, “God or my conscience prevents me from doing so” (also a moral position). Can anyone see any middle ground here? There is none. So the question is, whose moral “right” will take precedence?

Governors in Indiana, Arkansas, and several other states see the need for protecting religious liberty for a very good reason—it is under attack. The scales have tipped decidedly against the free exercise of traditional religion—against the right of Christians, Muslims, Jews and anyone else who can’t celebrate the orthodoxy of the new religion.

Forget tolerance. This is well beyond tolerance. Now, if you don’t agree to celebrate same-sex marriage, believers in the religion of sex will commence an inquisition and, without a trial, punish you for heresy. That’s why this legislation is necessary. Florists, bakers, photographers, real estate agents, Internet CEOs, and speakers like myself have all discovered personally that the people who say they are fighting for “tolerance” are often the most intolerant. In the name of “inclusion and diversity,” those of us who have a diverse view are being excluded, and even fired and fined because we won’t violate our beliefs to satisfy the overbearing clergy of the religion of sex.

A few years ago Cisco and Bank of America fired me as a training consultant because I had conservative beliefs about sex and marriage even though my beliefs were never expressed on the job. When a homosexual manager at Cisco found out on the Internet that I had authored a book giving evidence that maintaining the natural definition of marriage would be best for society, he couldn’t tolerate me and demanded that I be fired. An HR executive canned me within hours without ever speaking to me. This happened despite the fact that the leadership and teambuilding programs I led always received high marks (even from the homosexual manager!).

While I’m probably in the minority, I believe that people have the right to choose with whom they do business. In other words, I support Cisco’s right to fire me. My problem, as I explained here, is that they falsely claimed to be “inclusive and diverse” when they are anything but that. Their orthodoxy is just as closed and narrow as the most rabid fundamentalist church.

My friends David and Jason Benham agree with freedom of association and the rights of businesses as well. When members of the religion of sex learned that the evangelical Benham brothers were violating orthodoxy by being pro-life and pro-natural marriage, an inquisition began to get the Benhams fired from their TV show. Executives from HGTV ultimately caved to the demands of the dogmatic priests and canceled the show, which was already in production. When Jason Benham told a TV reporter that HGTV had the right to fire them, the reporter’s jaw dropped. The Benhams are actually tolerant! So are most Christians (although there are some bad apples in every group).

Somehow people are getting the wrong impression about these state laws that seek to protect religious liberty. (Not that the media would ever misrepresent an issue related to homosexuality—we all know how fair and balanced they are.) This one graphic shows how these laws work. You’ll notice that they do not allow businesses to deny anyone service at a retail establishment. No one is doing that now, and you wouldn’t be in business very long if you did. The free market would see to it. Moreover, those who actually follow Jesus want to be with and serve unbelievers as Jesus did. We just can’t advocate events or ideas that go against Christ’s teaching on marriage (Mt. 19:4-6).

The truth is these laws are not swords but shields. They are intended to shield those in the traditional religions from those in the religion of sex who would like to use the sword of government to force the traditionalists to participate in ceremonies that go against their religion or conscience. In other words, the laws are designed to prevent discrimination against the traditionalists, not enable them to discriminate against those in the religion of sex.

America has a long history of successfully balancing a variety of religious and moral beliefs with other important interests. For example, even when military service was involuntary, we still made room for conscientious objectors who did not want to carry weapons. If we can allow people to exempt themselves from defending the country—which is the most important responsibility our government has—we can certainly allow people to exempt themselves from performing same-sex wedding ceremonies!

What compelling government interest is there to force someone to support a same-sex wedding? It’s not like there is a shortage of people willing to do them. If a 70-year-old grandmother who is a florist can’t arrange flowers at your same-sex wedding, why not just go to someone else who would be happy to do it? (Is it really that hard to find a gay florist?) Why don’t we ever hear about traditionalists suing gay business owners for refusing to print up anti-gay marriage fliers? Why is “tolerance” only a one-way street to the religion of sex?

Should a Muslim caterer be forced to do a same-sex wedding? Should a Muslim T-shirt maker be forced to print gay pride T-shirts or those that satirize Mohammad? (The religion of sex would prefer we don’t use Muslims in our questions; stick to Christians please.)

There is no compelling government interest to force a business to do a wedding or print up anything against their beliefs. That’s why the religion of sex is distorting the facts and throwing a temper tantrum to get a government to force people to violate their conscience. (Their approach reminds me of what bad preachers write in the margin of their sermon notes: “Logic weak here—pound pulpit!”) Apparently, the religion of sex just can’t tolerate the fact that some people won’t accept their false doctrines by faith.

I wish there was a compromise position here but there isn’t. We have two opposing values in direct conflict. The religion of sex values the sword of government compulsion over the freedom of religion and conscience. Do you?

 

Dr. Frank Turek (D.Min.) is an award-winning author and frequent college speaker who hosts a weekly TV show on DirectTV and a radio program that airs on 186 stations around the nation.  His books include I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and Stealing from God:  Why atheists need God to make their case

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

541. POWER OF THE AIRWAVES “Hitler prepared for battle by infiltrating France’s airwaves. Germany hired native-French broadcasters to lure unsuspecting listeners to tune in to amusing radio shows and popular music. Many listeners were oblivious to the propaganda that was subtly included. These radio commentators expressed worry over the German army’s dominance and military strength, and predicted that France could not withstand an attack. The doubt Hitler’s radio programs planted in French minds quickly spread. Edmond Taylor, a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune who lived in France during this period, witnessed Hitler’s intricately choreographed propaganda campaign and how it crumbled France’s resolve. Describing it as a “strategy of terror,” Taylor reported that Germany spent enormous amounts on propaganda and even bribed French newspapers to publish stories that confirmed the rumors of Germany’s superiority. According to Taylor, Germany’s war of ideas planted a sense of dread “in the soul of France that spread like a monstrous cancer, devouring all other emotional faculties [with] an irrational fear [that was] . . . uncontrollable.” So weakened was the confidence of the French that something as innocuous as a test of France’s air-raid-siren system generated ripples of panic; the mere innuendo of invasion somehow reinforced the idea that France would undoubtedly be defeated.

Over 230 million Europeans, once free, fell under Nazi rule.”

Excerpt From: Molly Guptill Manning. “When Books Went to War.”

542. COMPUTER GAMES/SIMULATORS “Artificial renderings of space may provide stimulation to our eyes and to a lesser degree our ears, but they tend to starve our other senses—touch, smell, taste—and greatly restrict the movements of our bodies. A study of rodents, published in Science in 2013, indicated that the brain’s place cells are much less active when animals make their way through computer-generated landscapes than when they navigate the real world. “Half of the neurons just shut up,” reported one of the researchers, UCLA neurophysicist Mayank Mehta. He believes that the drop-off in mental activity likely stems from the lack of “proximal cues”—environmental smells, sounds, and textures that provide clues to location—in digital simulations of space. “A map is not the territory it represents,” the Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski famously remarked, and a virtual rendering is not the territory it represents either.”

Excerpt From: Carr, Nicholas. “The Glass Cage: Automation and Us.”

543. PRAYER IN SCHOOLS In 1962, the state of New York proposed this prayer for Its schools: “Almighty God we acknowledge our dependence on thee and we beg thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional.

Excerpt From: Reagan, Ronald. “The Notes.”

544. TIME “Alas! There is no casting anchor in the stream of time!”

— Marguerite Gardiner, 1850

545. PLEASE JUST LISTEN “Many persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience.” — Readers Digest

546. GOOD CONVERSATION “If you want to know how to make people shun you and laugh at you behind your back and even despise you, here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have an idea while the other person is talking, don’t wait for him or her to finish: bust right in and interrupt in the middle of a sentence.

People who talk only of themselves think only of themselves. And “those people who think only of themselves,” Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, longtime president of Columbia University, said, “are hopelessly uneducated. They are not educated,” said Dr. Butler, “no matter how instructed they may be.”

So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.”

Excerpt From: Carnegie, Dale. “How To Win Friends & Influence People.”

547. GEN. BRADLEY KNEW “General Omar Bradley was one of the main US Army field commanders in North Africa and Europe during World War II. Later, he was the first officer assigned to the post of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1948, he stated this powerful insight, “We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. . . . The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”

Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”

548. CONTROL YOUR TEMPER “You can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry.” — Bits and Piece

549. PRESIDENTIAL FAITH “No man who enters upon the office to which I have succeeded can fail to recognize how every president of the United States has placed special reliance upon his faith in God. Every president has taken comfort and courage when told . . . that the Lord “will be with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Fear not—neither be thou dismayed”. . . Each of our presidents in his own way has placed a special trust in God. Those who were strongest intellectually were also strongest spiritually. . . .” — John F. Kennedy in a February 1961 speech

550. BE THERE “God doesn’t ask for ability, but for availability.”

— Unknown

 

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The 14th Amendment Can’t Possibly Require Same-Sex Marriage

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The Supreme Court is about to decide if the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution requires the states to redefine marriage to include same sex relationships. There are several reasons why the answer is no.

The most decisive of these reasons is the fact that when the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868, homosexual behavior was a felony in every state in the union. So if the 14th Amendment was intended to require same-sex marriage, then every state in the union intended to throw the new couple into prison as soon as the marriage was consummated!

Some may say, “Who cares what they believed in 1868 about homosexuality? We’ve evolved since then.”

That’s addressed by the second reason: laws and words have specific scopes and meanings. They don’t have unlimited flexibility as liberal justices tend to think. Neither the intent nor the text of the Constitution requires the states to redefine marriage. If the people of the United States have “evolved” on the issue, then the Constitution provides them with a very clear and fair way for the document to intelligently “evolve”—they need to convince a supermajority of federal and state legislatures to amend the Constitution. That’s the very reason our Constitution has an amendment process!

If we fail to use the amendment process and permit judges to substitute their own definitions and judgments for what the people actually meant when they passed the law in the first place, then we no longer govern ourselves. Why vote or use the political process if unelected justices strike down our laws and impose their own as they go? In fact, why have a Constitution at all? If it’s “evolving” or “living,” then it’s not really a collective agreement of the people—it’s a pretext that allows judges to invent rights and impose any moral (or immoral) position they want against the will of the people.

Imagine if the people were to pass an amendment guaranteeing a right to same-sex marriage. Would you consider the Supreme Court to be legitimate if it imposed its own position and overturned the amendment? No, the people decide what the laws are, not the Court.

Third, the 14th Amendment was intended to prevent states from discriminating against newly freed slaves.  At that time blacks and women didn’t even have the right to vote, yet no court ever thought it could use the “equal protection” clause to change state voting laws. So why do some district courts think they can use it now to change state marriage laws?  Are we to believe that “equal protection” does not guarantee a woman’s right to vote but does guarantee a woman’s right to marry another woman? 

Since the people “evolved” on voting rights, they convinced supermajorities in Congress and of the state legislatures voted to add the 15th and 19th Amendments in 1870 and 1920 respectively. The courts knew they shouldn’t act as legislatures to grant rights not addressed by the Constitution. Neither should this Supreme Court.

Fourth, despite all the talk about equal rights, everyone already has equal marriage rights. Every person has the same equal right to marry someone of the opposite sex. That law treats all people equally, but not every behavior they may desire equally. If people with homosexual desires do not have equal rights, then people with desires to marry their relatives or more than one person don’t have equal rights. The “born that way” justification doesn’t work either because that same justification could make any desired arrangement “marriage,” which means the logic behind it is absurd. The Court needs to acknowledge the fact that natural marriage, same sex-marriage, incestuous marriage, and polygamous marriage are all different behaviors with different outcomes, so the law rightfully treats those behaviors differently while giving every citizen the equal right to participate in marriage whatever its legal definition is.

Finally, the states make marriage law, not the feds. The U.S. Constitution says nothing about marriage. While the Supreme Court did overturn Virginia’s ban on inter-racial marriage, it did so because Virginia discriminated on the basis of race, which is precisely what the 14th Amendment was intended to prevent. There is no rational reason to discriminate on the basis of race because race is irrelevant to marriage. However, gender is essential to it. Even the 2013 Windsor decision, which partially struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, recognized that marriage is a state, not a federal issue. Since there is no 14th Amendment issue here, the Court must leave marriage to the states.

Legal reasons such as these are all the Court is constitutionally permitted to consider. Polls and policy considerations are for the people or their legislatures, not the courts. Ryan T. Anderson writes in his recent column titled Memo to Supreme Court: Nothing in the Constitution Requires States to Redefine Marriage: “The overarching question before the Supreme Court is not whether an exclusively male–female marriage policy is the best, but only whether it is allowed by the U.S. Constitution. The question is not whether government-recognized same-sex marriage is good or bad policy, but only whether it is required by the U.S. Constitution.”

Does the U.S. Constitution require same-sex marriage? No, the U.S. Constitution requires the Court to leave this issue to the states. If you believe otherwise, then amend the Constitution.

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

531. SMART PHONES AND DEMENTIA? “One of the earliest and most debilitating symptoms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, is hippocampal and entorhinal degeneration and the consequent loss of locational memory. Victims begin to forget where they are. Véronique Bohbot, a research psychiatrist and memory expert at McGill University in Montreal, has conducted studies demonstrating that the way people exercise their navigational skills influences the functioning and even the size of the hippocampus—and may provide protection against the deterioration of memory. The harder people work at building cognitive maps of space, the stronger their underlying memory circuits seem to become. They can actually grow gray matter in the hippocampus—a phenomenon documented in London cab drivers—in a way that’s analogous to the building of muscle mass through physical exertion. But when they simply follow turn-by-turn instructions in “a robotic fashion,” Bohbot warns, they don’t “stimulate their hippocampus” and as a result may leave themselves more susceptible to memory loss. Bohbot worries that, should the hippocampus begin to atrophy from a lack of use in navigation, the result could be a general loss of memory and a growing risk of dementia. “Society is geared in many ways toward shrinking the hippocampus,” she told an interviewer. “In the next twenty years, I think we’re going to see dementia occurring earlier and earlier.”

Excerpt From: Carr, Nicholas. “The Glass Cage: Automation and Us.”

532. PERSEVERE Thomas Edison once said, “Most of life’s failures are people who didn’t realize how close they were to success before they gave up.”

533. LEGACY “Great people plant trees they will never sit under.” — Alfred North Whitehead

534. CIVILITY “The strength of a nation is not its legal machinery, but the moral stamina and courage of its people. The law is but the codification of their conscience. There are not enough laws and never will be, to keep a society stable if its members no longer will it. There are not enough policemen, courts, judges or prisons, nor ever can be to prevent the death of a civilization whose people no longer care. Law enforcement is for the criminal few; it collapses if it must be enforced against the many. When the sense of personal accountability is no longer present in majority strength, then no legal device known to man can hold the society together. Freedom is a timely torch blazing in the dark.”

— Ralph Bradford

535. TAXES “The moment you abandon the cardinal principle of extracting from all individuals the same proportion of their income or their property you are at sea without rudder or compass & there is no amount of injustice or folly you may not commit.”

— John McCulloch (100 years ago)

536. BEING LIGHT “What is to give light must endure burning.”

—VIKTOR E. FRANKL

537. TECH EFFECT “Ours may be a time of material comfort and technological wonder, but it’s also a time of aimlessness and gloom. During the first decade of this century, the number of Americans taking prescription drugs to treat depression or anxiety rose by nearly a quarter. One in five adults now regularly takes such medications. The suicide rate among middle-aged Americans increased by nearly 30 percent over the same ten years, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 10 percent of American schoolchildren, and nearly 20 percent of high-school-age boys, have been given a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and two-thirds of that group take drugs like Ritalin and Adderall to treat the condition.”

Excerpt From: Carr, Nicholas. “The Glass Cage: Automation and Us.”

538. BIBLE & PRESIDENTS “The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.”

CALVIN COOLIDGE, THIRTIETH PRESIDENT

“We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity.”

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, THIRTY-SECOND PRESIDENT

“The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and Saint Matthew, from Isaiah and Saint Paul. . . . If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State!”

HARRY S. TRUMAN, THIRTY-THIRD PRESIDENT

“Inside the Bible’s pages lie all the answers to all of the problems man has ever known. . . . The Bible can touch our hearts, order our minds, and refresh our souls.”

RONALD REAGAN, FORTIETH PRESIDENT

Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”

539. The word “sin” is no longer included in the latest version of the Oxford Junior Dictionary.

540. “Some people mistake a bad memory for a clear conscience.” — Chris Seidman

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