If ET Exists, Why Are There No Photographs?

Last known photo of extra terrestrials 

Here is Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt standing on the surface of the moon 42 years ago. Being from a different planet this would make them ET's (or more accurately EL's or Extra Lunarian(?)). Here we have this beautiful full color picture of Alien Astronauts on a celestial body a quarter million miles away. Meanwhile here on Earth, if you believe the hysteria, there's more extraterrestrial aliens wandering around the USA than there are illegal aliens. (Then again, if an ET lands without permission that would make him/her/it an illegal alien anyhow.)

So why are there no pictures of ET?

Quote of the Week

We should not be surprised at all that vampires are Democrats. After all, they scream when they see a cross. - Steven Colbert 07/24/14

Random Bits

"If you were of the world, the world would love
its own; but because you are not of the
 world, but I chose you out of the world,
because of this the world hates you."

The Big Bang Theory has one flaw that scientists are having problem addressing: us. According to the physics of the Big Bang Theory we shouldn't be here, the universe as we know it should have collapsed immediately after it exploded into existence. This is not news to disappointed scientists, however instead of turning to God as an explanation they chose instead to identify the origin of the universe as "a crazy black hole the likes of which we can't even imagine" Keep trying fellas.

Religion of Peace update: After 2,000 years the last Christian is forced out of Mosul. Islam still insists it's not a death cult but employs a "Convert or die" policy.

In case you missed it, the Church of England has slipped further into anti-biblical rebellion against God, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is just delighted.

The Worlds oldest sandwich was found in a UK church organ. Sandwich fans: there's no mention of what was inside the sandwich, which makes this the worst case of reporting I've ever run across. Seriously, this is the worlds only existing sample of a Pre-Miracle Whip Era sandwich and no details? Was it ham? Bologna? Cheese? What were the condiments used? inquiring minds want to know.

This Old Hymn

I was up late last night, my mind awash with the sadness of it all; churches once Godly and dedicated to preach the Gospel of Jesus now falling into apostasy one by one, faster and faster. As I mentioned here the one church I expected to survive to the end has fallen into Satan's trap and is little more than a gay affirming social club with a dusty bible stored in the back room. False bibles, tomes of heresy, piling up to bury the unwary: The Message, The Queen James, The New World Translation, The Passion, it's too much to believe. I truly believe it was the Holy Spirit that reminded me over and over last night that yes, this was foretold and there's only one thing we can do, and we Christian bloggers must take it to the web:

Emergent Monday: Bible? What Bible?

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; (2 Timothy 3:16)

Except when emergent superstar Andy Stanley is in da house. Then the bible must be kept under wraps, hidden from view, and never quoted. Well... you can quote from the bible, but you can't say where the quote came from. For those of you that haven't heard the name Andy Stanley, he's the son of Dr. Charles Stanley and the man who called atheist apostate Barak Hussien Obama our "Pastor In Chief". Although you don't hear a lot from him, Andy Stanley is a heavy hitter in the Emergent Church. While he claims to not be a part of the Emergent Church Andy Stanley has been a conduit for New Age contemplative poison to infiltrate the church counting cult leader Steven Furtick and counts New Age preachers Bill Hybels and Louie Giglio as friends.

Who Sinned?

And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" (John 9:2)

This verse always gets a reaction from me, the first time I read this my reaction was a condescending "Superstitious goofs!" kind of thing, then later having read and understood a bit better:

6 Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; 7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations (Exodus 34:6-7)

The Miracles We Overlook

As I read through the gospels I'm often startled at the number of miracles that were reported but 2000 years later tend to get ignored. Actually a lot of miracles Jesus performed gets ignored today. It seems fashionable to say, as Karl Beth says

His miracles were not to be a condition for the faith of men. They are not intended in the least to excite faith. On the contrary, Jesus aims at nothing more than to distract attention from his miraculous deeds.

In other words "Ignore Jesus' miracles, they're just a distraction." I agree that Jesus' miracles were not to be a condition of faith, but I disagree that they are not intended to excite faith. They're intended to do something, otherwise why bother to do them? I've heard it said that Jesus just performed miracles because in His time the world didn't believe His message. Like today is any better?

Personally I consider His miracles to be several things, one of which is to show His divine nature, another appears to be a statement showing us that if he can cure our bodies, he can cure our sinful nature. Miracles are only a part of His message, just as correct punctuation is part of a written message, a small part but a vital part. Jesus is the message, He is the Word, His entire time here on earth was a message, why should we ignore any part of it? especially the punctuation. Try making sense of this statement without punctuation:

That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is

I Embrace Panmillennialism

Nope, I am not all fired up about the doctrine of a pre-tribulation rapture. I'm not going to scream I'm a post trib kinda guy, but to me pre-trib just sounds sounds too easy, 'way too easy. I mean, the early Christians were thrown to the lions for their faith in Jesus Christ. In the middle ages Christians were burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church for the sin of reading God's word in the bible. And you want to tell me that a bunch of Laodocian Christians are going to get off this rock Scott free just for the amazing theological feat of living at the right time? Then again, that's just me. I can come up with bible verses that support both pre and post tribulation raptures doctrines and find both equally valid.

My wife is fairly upset that I don't give serious thought to a pre-tribulation rapture and wants to know if I'm mid-trib or post-tribulation. My answer has always been "I'll let you know after the rapture." She tried to make me take a stand for pre-trib doctrine by reminding me that John MacArthur is a pre-tribulationist, to which I replied that Charles Spurgeon, Charles Finney, John Knox, John Calvin, Martin Luther, George Whitefield, all believed in a post-tribulation rapture. And the moment I did that a verse popped into my head and my heart sank

1 Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn't talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ. 2 I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren't ready for anything stronger. And you still aren't ready, 3 for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn't that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren't you living like people of the world? 4 When one of you says, “I am a follower of Paul,” and another says, “I follow Apollos,” aren't you acting just like people of the world? (1 Corinthians 3:1-4)

It's Not The Gay, It's The Pride

Now hamburgers are doing it? America is getting weird. And to be honest we Christians can be pretty weird too. Yes, we are the target of gay vitriol and hate but then we're the target of vitriol and hate from a lot of groups solely for the fact that we love our lord and savior Jesus Christ, and if you didn't know that when you 'signed up' you haven't been reading the manual:

You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. (Matthew 10:22)

Yes, homosexuality is attacking the church, trying to force its way into our midst, changing our traditions and ceremony, attempting to change the way we worship God into the way they worship themselves. What happened to the Presbyterian church (to me at least) is clearly an attack by Satan, but a gay trying to join a church may merely be a sinner trying to find forgiveness from his Master. Homosexuality is not a greater sin than any other, it's just a sin and God hates all sin.

However there is one sin that God truly hates: Pride.

“The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate. (Proverbs 8:13)

Pastors Not Welcome At Immigration Camps

A wave of people trying to unlawfully enter the United States is crashing against our shores. These people are ridden with diseases, lice and suffer from malnourishment, they've been assaulted and raped, and in their trek to America they left a trail of bodies of the weak and sick. As a history buff the sins of the past come to mind. One of the main components of Nazi Germany's Blitzkreig was to drive refugees before them overwhelming the defenders with noncombatants. Is this wave of refugees being driven toward us as part of a larger invasion?

Although they're invaders, they're still people, they have both physical and spiritual needs, both of which the Obama administration refuses to allow Christians to provide for as Fox News' Todd Starnes reports:

Pastors and churches have been banned from helping the thousands of illegal immigrant children housed in border detention facilities run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, clergy in Texas and Arizona tell me.


“Border Patrol told us pastors and churches are not allowed to visit,” said Kyle Coffin, the pastor of CrossRoads Church in Tucson, Arizona. “It’s pretty heartbreaking that they don’t let anybody in there -- even credentialed pastors.”

Mikey Weinstein - Getting Rich Through Persecuting Christians

For those of you that have never heard of Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, you were probably better off not knowing about him. Mikey founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation whose stated purpose is to:

ensure that all members of the United States Armed Forces fully receive the Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom to which they and all Americans are entitled by virtue of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

A Proclamation Needed Now More Than Ever

Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln's son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed. This Independence Day let us celebrate our dependence on God. 

Washington, D.C.
March 30, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.


A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

Because I'm Happy

My RCC upbringing still makes things a bit confusing in my bible studies, I have to relearn  a lot of stuff, and there's some notions still floating around in my head that came from my days learning the catechism. One of these instilled notions is 'Don't worry about what the bible says, we'll tell you what you need to know.' 

So when I read the word "blessed" it means one thing to me: someone who has been beatified or canonized. Beatified means to determine that a dead person is holy enough to be worshiped and canonized means to determine that a dead person is holy enough to be worshiped and carries the RCC rank of Saint. And do not let the RCC apologist tell you they venerate and not worship, that is incorrect, they certainly do worship dead people. Catholic Encyclopedia defines Beatification as:

Beatification is a permission for public worship restricted to certain places and to certain acts.

Interesting how Revelation 22:9 escaped the RCC. So with this nonsense stuck in my head how can I possibly properly appreciate the Beatitudes?  I have to make a conscious effort to remember that "blessed" does not involve an ancient ceremony and worshiping a false god. 

When looking at the beatitudes I've recently discovered that the Greek word that got transliterated into blessed is actually makarios:

Makarios: a prolonged form of the poetical makar (meaning the same); supremely blest; by extension fortunate, well off :- blessed, happy (× -ier).

If I take out 'blessed' and all of its expired connotations for me and replace blessed with other adjectives that makarios covers, the beatitudes now appear a lot clearer to me:

³ “Prosperous are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴ “Fortunate are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

⁵ “Happy are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

⁶ “Fortunate are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

⁷ “Well off are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

⁸ “Happy are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

⁹ “Happy are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

¹⁰ “Fortunate are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Happy are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:3-12)

I'm not re-writing the bible, I'm using appropriate meanings from the original word used. It does not sound as pretty as the KJV wording, but the meaning is clearer to me with my 21st century vocabulary. Sometimes we have to dig to get to the meaning of the words God laid down for us. It's worth it.

Seeker Sensitive Churches - The Yoke's On You

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? (NIV) (2 Corinthians 6:14)

 I've heard that verse being used in regards to marital and romantic relationships between a saved Christian and an unbeliever, but if we look at the actual context of the verse it's not really about that. Using the 20/20 rule (to gain the proper context read 20 verses before and 20 verses after any verse you want to use) we see that Paul isn't talking about marriage in 2 Corinthians 6:14, his discourse on marriage is found in 1 Corinthians 7:12-16, but avoiding being spiritually unevenly yoked in a personal relationship is still good advice. However the context of 2 Corinthians 6:14 is in the context of the ministry of the Corinthians, the Church of Corinth. Let's look again in context: 

14 Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? 16 Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 17 “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean; And I will welcome you. 18 “And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” Says the Lord Almighty. 1 Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (2 Corinthians 6: 14-18, 2 Corinthians 7:1)