Encountering God

Class Application Question

2009-02-23T20:40:00.003-06:00

I recently was posed with this question for one of my Bible classes, and although I didn't take it the way the professor was probably expecting, I felt it was particularly applicable to my blog. I hope you enjoy it and find it useful.
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1. What can we do as Christians to promote more justice in this world of hatred? For example, we have churches from various ethnic backgrounds that don’t seem to have fellowship/partnership with one another. We have drawn a clear distinction along the social and ethnical lines.

Unfortunately, this is a very difficult question to answer. Our society is still heavily segregated along various social an ethnic lines most often due to the overarching societal stigmas that are constantly battled and placed on us by the media and our government. I think of affirmative action as an example of being one of the most blatantly government forced segregation made.

The very fact that it is such a big deal that our President in the United States of America is black is an indicator of our segregated attitudes. Unfortunately, we tend to want to force people to not segregate by any manner of coercion: political, guilt, or violent. This however tends to cause the opposite of the intention to result. For instance, one of the absolute worst ways to help those who are poor is to increase or have welfare at all. In addition, things like, Medicaid, social security, welfare, unemployment, are all increasingly detrimental to the poor of society rather than beneficial. This fact is incredibly ironic when it is considered that such programs coerce people into recognizing who the poor are (discrimination) and “help” them, when in fact it hurts them both socially and fiscally.

I am distinctly of the opinion that if we ever want to change the views of American society on social and ethnic segregation, it will come by the lack of acknowledgement of their existence and by simply once again viewing people as people regardless of any denotation into a certain group that person may have. This is a very Christian idea as Christ always viewed people as people and not as a person of a group. I think about the women who was about to be stoned who Jesus saved from that peril. It is interesting that all the men who were to stone her simply saw her as being a part of an “adulterous” group, while Jesus saw her as an individual who had specific needs, and concerns that needed to be met in order to change and follow God.

Why our foreign policy is so important.

2009-02-13T13:14:00.004-06:00

This video is extremely important in understand the immorality of our large-government interventionist policies that cause chaos and destruction throughout the world. It is also deeply moving if you do indeed understand why we are where we're at.

Does God have hope for us?

2009-02-05T14:52:00.002-06:00

My latest posts have been mostly about the state of affairs in our country and the moral ramifications thereof. So I feel that it's time for a change of pace. I hope you enjoy and find this next post both interesting and perhaps challenging.
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The title for this entry is a simple question which could be easily answered in a simple fashion as well. However, due to many of our modern ideas about God, such a question is no longer so simple.

Unfortunately, there are ideas that have begun circulating around that God is an 'Omni' God. I'm sure many of you have heard the sermon about the "attributes" of God, I never really took much time to memorize them since they were never particularly useful to me, but I believe that they are, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotence. Firstly, if God has a chance at being any of them He might be omnipresent and omnipotent, but this may just be because I have yet to find conflict within these ideas. However, there are several things that are important to note when having this discussion.

First, none of these 'omni' words are used in the Bible. These words were created and while their definitions are found within the Bible, to simply claim them to be correct can inappropriately ignore the context with which the words were written.

Second, omniscience (all-knowing) is not required for God to know what he will choose to do in the future. This is a big one, because I would argue that every account within the Bible where it claims that God knew that something would come to be can be a true statement simply because God knows what he will do.

Third, the omniscience of God, when applied to knowing what we will choose, goes against the entirety of free will and removes all will for any action.

Having said these three things, I would then put forth that it is possible for God to have hope for us and it is from that that God is filled with joy and consequentally we can be filled with joy. To provide a concrete example of God having hope for the future (why would God have hope if he knows what's going to happen?) take a look at Amos 9:11-15. Here we can see that God is wishing for something different in the future, but he has already laid out that it is contingent upon the people of Israel.

So what does that mean for us? If God has hopes and desires for our lives, in what way should that affect us? I submit that it should give us the footing to make decisions in our lives that in faithful submission to the love that God has shown to us. It should cause us to review every aspect of our lives in a way that there is no such thing as 'secular' and 'religious' because your entire life will be God centered.

National Debt

2009-01-30T12:11:00.004-06:00

Take note that this is not our total nation wide debt. This image as well as an excellent resource to understanding inflation and our nations indebtedness is found at this website, check it out for extensive information about our debtor nation.
http://one-simple-idea.com/DebtAndMoney.htm

Dealing with our Economic Crisis

2009-01-30T09:51:00.002-06:00

I've been having an excellent Discussion with a friend about our current economic difficulties. After exchanges I was given a series of questions to which I feel that I have answered thoroughly and which explain how a moral society would deal with this crisis.
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When you talking about bringing home troops that are overseas, are you including Iraq and Afghanistan? I have certainly been no advocate of the War in Iraq, much to the contrary. However, can we really properly secure our nation without any presence overseas whatsoever? Also, while I like this idea, the fact is that our current crisis, while stemming from a lot of things, did not stem from the federal government spending too much money. The argument for bringing home troops makes sense if we are trying to balance the budget, but I fail to see how that would have prevented us from our current problems.

I am talking about bringing home the troops especially in Iraq in Afghanistan. I have a simple question to answer your question “can we really properly secure our nation without any presence overseas whatsoever?” Is our nation more secure or less secure since entering into the war in Iraq? Is our country more secure or less secure since we got into the business of undermining foreign governments and propping up military dictators in the Middle East? When you make Megan upset because of a foolish decision, do you keep making the same foolish decision over and over again, or do you apologize, and change your entire approach to the situation?

The economic crisis is a multifaceted problem. But consider this analogy. If you are going to school, and you are taking out student loans to get that education (social security, welfare). Now, that’s not entirely bad because eventually you’ll be able to use that education to be profitable (just as social security and welfare are in place with the assumption that they are to help people who are potentially profitable or were profitable in the past). Now, let us pretend that, while you are still not profitable you decide to buy a brand new 20k car. For this car you take out another loan while you haven’t done anything to pay your school loans (CIA mission to overthrow a government). Now also pretend you decided that you just have to have a house, so you somehow (no bank in their right minds would give you this loan, but lets pretend that they do) get a loan to buy a 300k dollar house (compare this type of loan to starting a war in another country). You’re still not profitable as a student bringing in no income, so you’re not paying back on this loan in any way.

Now pretend also that it becomes apparent that you are not going to be able to pay back your debts, have you increased or decreased your repertoire with the banks and lenders who gave you those student loans? Pretend that you use your car to drive through people’s lawns and tear up their lawns and to destroy public property. Are you more or less safe from having negative revenge taken against you? Pretend also that you had someone else’s house demolished to build your house, are you more or less safe from having revenge taken against you? Pretend further that not only have you done all of this, but as it turns out while you claimed you were borrowing this money from a backed source, it turns out that you haven’t! In fact you created counterfeit money to do it, unfortunately no one can charge you for it because the Chair of the federal reserve actually helped you create it without any backing. Now 320k dollars in counterfeit money isn’t likely to cause too much inflation. But pretend that it’s actually somewhere around 40 trillion dollars (approximately how much money the federal reserve has created without any backing).

And herein lies the fundamental problem. 40 trillion dollars, when created artificially must inflate the dollar, and that is the major effect of what we’re seeing today. So long as other countries still believe, and so long as the country still believes, that one dollar can buy something, it will buy something, but eventually the effects of this artificial injection in our fiat monetary system must have an effect.

So I got a little distracted from answering your original question directly, but I believe I have answered it in a round about way, so I will summarize here. While our presence overseas has not (by itself) bankrupted our country, in collusion with our welfare state, and increasingly police state, the bankruptcy is inevitable. If you look at our national debt (53 trillion) you must ask yourself where we’re getting this money from. We have not literally borrowed it from other countries. We have “borrowed” it from ourselves. And what this amounts to is the Federal Reserve creating the money out of thin air thus inflating the dollar. Inflation is a tax on the poor. It doesn’t hurt the people at the top who get the money first (government, bankers, and military-industry corporations). It hurts the poor person whose income increases by 2% when their buying power decreases by 30%

Ok, so you're prepared to let all of the banks that received TARP money go out of business? This includes Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, etc.

The question is not are we going to let them go out of business. That is the wrong question to ask. The question to ask is, “Do we have a right to hurt the poor people (and eventually even the middle class) in this country by inflating the dollar by creating more money we do not have to bail them out?” If your answer is yes to this question, then I believe that you are a part in creating the immoral oppression of the poor in this country.

What do you think will happen to the stock market if all of these banks fail? Who are all of these other profitable banks? What about all of the people that have their money in these TARP receiving banks? What about all of the people that are employed by these banks? Most importantly, who's going to make loans to our countries' citizens, small business, and corporations if most of the countries' banks have failed. If you want to talk about the country coming to a screetching halt, this would be it.

In answer to the questions about the stock market, you must understand that the companies that are being propped up are in existence because of something artificial, and it cannot, and will not last. The question then becomes, will we prolong the agony, or will we get it over quickly so we can move on? To answer the questions about the stock market, I would encourage you to watch YouTube videos of Peter Schiff, also check out Europac, the company he owns. Companies like his would take the place of these other bad businesses, but the government keeps propping them up when they are repeatedly wrong and non-profitable.

In answer to your questions about loans, people pay back student loans and if you check, most student loan companies are not in significant trouble at this time. The big banks that you are talking about, by being propped up by the government are not allowing free entry into the market for new companies who can offer better, more secure loans for people who need them for things like houses. Most of these companies (despite popular opinion) are not failing because of the housing industry. They are failing because of credit card debt, and what is called credit default swaps. Because the Federal Reserve has been artificially setting interest rates and injecting capital into our economy the housing bubble was created because it appeared that we had more money to buy houses than we really did. The housing crisis is because the cost of houses is artificially too high (this is what’s called a bubble) the bubble is trying desperately to deflate, but the Federal Reserve is doing everything to keep the prices high. Unfortunately, this does mean that people who got into bad loans where they can no longer afford their house, they did so not because of corrupt real estate agents, or corrupt bankers, but because of corrupt government intervention. Government intervention is keeping the housing too high and so new people who want to enter the market, who are saving their money, still cannot afford housing.

In reference to credit default swaps, which I mentioned earlier, I learned most of what I know about them about 2 months ago in several articles I read about AIG. Unfortunately, I don’t remember as much about it as I wish I did. However, the main issue was that banks were basically guaranteeing investors interest returns on their CD’s which didn’t pan out, in part because of the housing bubble, but that issue was compounded by impending credit card debts that weren’t being paid off.

In a non-interventionist free-market economy, these banks would not have been propped up by the government and given significant unfair tax breaks (unfair because they disadvantaged new companies from entering the market) allowing them to become “so big we can’t afford to let them fail.” In addition to this issue, in a non-interventionist free-market economy, people wouldn’t be taking out loans for cars, or furniture. They would save their money to buy these things, and this would be encouraged instead of this constant call for SPEND, SPEND, SPEND, that we’re seeing today.

All of these big banks will be profitable again. The problem is that the nation has no confidence in their ability to function- to make good loans. The problem now is that all of these banks are plagued by bad debts from defaulted loans. In many cases, the banks don't even know how much money in bad loans they have. Therefore, when the government dispersed the TARP funds, the banks did not start lending and making new, good loans because they didn't know how many loans they could give out. Once these bad, defaulted loans are purchased by the government, the banks can start loaning again and slowly regain the confidence of the American people.

Loans for what? What is it that people are “needing” loans for? People have recourse for starting over, bankruptcy, cutting back on expenses. The problem here is not whether or not it’s fair that people would have to live less wealthy than they have so far in their lives. The problem, and important question is, what right does the government have to decide who gets to benefit and who they’re going to take from to benefit those they decide are worthy. Bailing out banks is not going to save our economy it is going to tank it. Because the government eventually has to pay for the artificial capital that they are creating to bail out these banks, and when they do the people they are going to go to will not be able to afford it. So we are left with dealing with the inflation that has been caused by creating capital out of thin air.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like giving money to corrupt executives whose businesses have failed. But, in this kind of a situation, you have no other alternative. I don't think it's immoral to give funds to poorly functioning banks when millions of peoples and families livelihoods are on the line. You'd be potentially impoverishing more people this way I don't see any "profitable" banks stepping up to take on the role that these other failing giants have played.

I think I have adequately answered this paragraph so I will just reiterate previous points. If you act now and give money to banks to help in the short term, you will impoverish millions of people in the long term, bankrupt our entire government beyond repair, and collapse the value of the dollar. If you allow the market to correct itself from all the bubbles that government market interventionism has caused millions of people will forced to cut back on their standard of living in the short term, but this situation is recoverable instead of forcing a the dollar into collapse.

Poor people are oppressed through the tax code and when government spends money? I just think that you fail to recognize the impact that an unregulated market economy has on the poorer members of society. The poor get poorer and the rich get richer. It's built into the system. Just look at how the poor has done during the Reagan and Bush years. America has more billionaires than almost any nation. However, at the same time, there is greater inequality of wealth in the United States than in almost any other industrialized nation. I think that's pitiful. We are not going to obtain social justice in this country without government intervention. People are caught in cycles of poverty that many can not break out of without a boost from government

I challenge you to explain to me how the unregulated market has a negative effect on the poor. And I challenge you to do so specifically. It’s a common statement that you just made, but it has never been successfully explained to me. Do you think George Bush expanded regulation or removed it? Not did he remove it in some areas, which is irrefutably true. But in sum total did he expand it or shrink it? The answer, if you check into it, is that he expanded regulation. Look at how the poor did during the Clinton administration. Don’t be deceived by the expansion of millionaires, and decreased unemployment, look at how much the dollar was inflated during the Clinton administration. It was just as much as with the Bush’s and Reagan administration. If I have not fully explained how the government impoverishes people through inflation and redistributing wealth from the profitable to the unprofitable (good business to bad business, working Americans to not working Americans, production companies to insurance companies, etc.) then I apologize for not explaining it well enough. But until you understand the effects of government interventionism in our economy (as well as in the world) you will never understand how people in America are impoverished. And it is no surprise that there are more billionaires than ever before. When there is 53 trillion more dollars in the market than there was 40 years ago it is no surprise that this artificial creation has stayed at the top of the economy, the place where the government keeps giving the money (Democrat and Republican).

Bankrupt U.S. Government.

2009-01-29T15:41:00.000-06:00

Immorality at it's best.

Protecting the Poor

2009-01-23T14:05:00.004-06:00

Along the same lines and with the same spirit of my last post. We must consider how the poor get oppressed in American Society.

Currently, inflation is rising at an alarming rate, even if it doesn't appear on paper yet, it will. If you create and distribute trillions of dollars into the system that is the definition of inflation.

Listen to this video and hear the true cry for the poor. Our President, Barak Obama has no idea how to really help the poor.

2009-01-17T10:27:00.005-06:00

Don't understand why our national debt is out of control? Don't understand why the government is having to bail out everyone? Check out these videos.

Keep in mind Peter Schiff is saying these things in 2006.

Listen to the guy who speaks second, he's the embodiment of our mass ignorance on economic issues.

If after watching these videos, you don't understand why I would post this in a blog entitled "Encountering God" you ought to reconsider what it means to oppress the poor, and how that happens in American society and economics.

Recent Letter from Congressman Fortenberry.

2009-01-16T12:31:00.003-06:00

For those of you who don't know, I live in Lincoln, Nebraska. I am a recent inhabitant, but as such I have made it a point to get to know about my Congressman. I did vote for Congressman Fortenberry, mostly because he voted against the bailout bills. But a recent e-mail that I recieved from him has left me ill-at-ease. I promptly, as I have done in the past when I was especially displeased or pleased by the actions of Congressman Fortenberry, e-mailed him about his letter entitled "The Fort Report."
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Congressman Fortenberry,

I recently recieved an e-mail that was entitled "The Fort Report". At first I was very pleased to get such an e-mail, but as I read it, I became more and more disapointed.

In this letter you claimed, "My efforts in Congress are focused on five important areas for our nation's well-being: national security and global stability, alternative energy and environmental sustainability, small business entrepreneurship and rural vitality, patient-centered healthcare reform, and family life and culture."

These are all well and good, but you did not give any principles by which you plan to deal with these issues. I breifly examined your voting record before voting for you this last term (mostly because of the way you voted on the bailout bills), but upon further and more in depth review of your voting record, I am unable to acertain what principles you use to guide your voting.

Please sir, do not just make a stand on issues, develope a set of principles to guide your decision making so that you are a principled voter whom myself, and others can count on to vote with the nations best intrest always in mind. Finally, when you have those principles, please let us know what they are so we know whether we ought to vote for you in the future.

Thank you for your consideration of my letter.

Sincerely,

Kyle McCauley

A Tribute to my favorite Passage in Scripture

2009-01-16T11:11:00.002-06:00

This last semester of college, I took several online classes. One of which was a class called the world Christian. The professor proposed this question to us:

"This question may be a difficult one for you to answer honestly. Our culture pressures us to minimalize the effects of sin and bad behavior. It also teaches us toleration of all belief systems. So, for this discussion you are challenged to respond to two things: 1. Who does God save? and 2. Who does God condemn. In your answer explain your views and be sure to provide Scripture to support your answer."

As the title to this post states, this is merely a tribute to the passage, it doesn't really fully explain the passage but it does illuminate the key message that this passage has to offer. The passage is Hosea 2:19
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1. Who does God save?

God saves all those who take on the attributes that are required to have relationship with God. In Hosea 2:19 God has just finished telling Israel that no matter what, he will pursue Israel. Unfortunately, due to Israel’s sinfulness, Israel does not have what it takes to be in relationship with God, so God declares that he will provide the necessary elements to them.

Hosea 2:19 – “I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord.”

First, acknowledge is not a very suiting translation, a better translation is simply to know God, and as with human relationships, in order to know God you must be in relationship with him.

Second the attributes that God says he will bring to the table in order to have a relationship (to know) Israel are:

Righteousness – Sedeq, equality and fairness
- This is an attribute of our daily lives that we are to live out. It is also balanced state with God that we have when God enacts his Mispat upon us when we are fulfilling our part of the covenant.

Justice – Mispat, defense of the weak and poor against oppression
- This is also an attribute of our daily lives that we are to live out, though perhaps more specifically in our treatment of those who are disadvantaged.

Covenant Love – Hesed, loyalty to the covenants of God
- This is best illustrated by our love and loyalty to the death and resurrection of Christ on the cross. What does that mean specifically? Confession of faith is definitely part of this, as is repentance, as is baptism as is obeying the decrees of God.

Compassion – Rahamim, also consists of mercy.
- We must be a people who forgive; we must be a people of grace. Too often we are stingy with grace, yet Christ himself was not stingy with grace.

Faithfulness – Emuna, also synonymous with obedience
- God expects us to be obedient to him and to be faithful in that obedience.

2. Who does God condemn?

God condemns many people, but it is usually in response to their actions. As I said with the book of Hosea, God condemned Israel for not having the five attributes I detailed previously. However, those attributes are more than just attributes. They are principles by which we should react to God, human-kind and to the scripture itself, we can easily see how Jesus reacted towards those who did not exhibit an adherence to the principles that Hosea 2:19 lists. In Matthew 12, Jesus responds to the Pharisees (the same group of people he called “white washed tombs”) by reminding them of Hosea 6:6 where it says “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” This simple statement is loaded with theology, but what we can take from this is that, we must be guided by the principles of God and not by the peripheral things to which God rejects if it is not done with

Internet Research

2009-01-15T22:58:00.005-06:00

While casually browsing the internet for further information on the healthcare proposals that are being talked about by our President Elect, his cabinent and our congress, I came accross this well prepared article. Check it out. Here is a quote from the article.

"But suppose the government suddenly decreed that it would exempt from income taxes any money spent on homeowners insurance. This would reduce taxes for insurance-paid repairs. Accordingly, people would seek insurance policies that cover routine home maintenance, such as painting, carpet replacement, and fence and deck maintenance—and insurers would provide them. Although these new policies would cost more, they would seem on the surface to be a bargain because homeowners would be spending untaxed dollars. Demand for home repairs would skyrocket. More money would be spent on home maintenance, and the cost of home insurance would quickly outpace that of other goods and services. To remain in business, home insurers would limit coverage for more expensive repairs. Simultaneously, to curry favor with their constituents, politicians would seek mandates to expand coverage, and, of course, they would demand further regulations to make sure that poor homeowners had “access” to homeowners insurance. This is precisely what has happened with health insurance."

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-winter/moral-vs-universal-health-care.asp

One major missing element from all the talks about Universal Health care that are in favor of it. There is no discussion of who pays the price and what exactly those ramifications will be.

Healthcare

2009-01-15T08:50:00.003-06:00

In the spirit of my last post, about morality and government, I have more thoughts on such issues and specifically about our healthcare system.

When did it become immoral to hold people accountable for their life choices?

I was watching a news story this morning on CNN about Obama’s plans to nationalize healthcare. The first and most obvious question is, what in the world does Obama know about healthcare? And secondly, what in the world does anyone in congress know about healthcare? The American people have seen the demise of Healthcare over the last several years and the cause is because of the role the Federal government has played in trying to provide healthcare to people. The ignorance of this very fact, unfortunately, has caused many people to believe the lies that allowing this very same government who has deteriorated our current healthcare system to what it is now to completely take it over will somehow make it better. Let’s use an analogy to analyze this.

A farmer wants to produce more crops in order to make more profit. In order to do this he buys a brand new fertilizer that he uses on a small portion of his crops in order to see if those crops produce more than the crops who do not receive the fertilizer. After harvest, he finds out that in fact, the section of crops that received the fertilizer had a LOWER production. So logically, the farmer decided to put the fertilizer on all of his crops next season. Right? NO! Not right! The farmer would stop using the fertilizer.

The government is our fertilizer that is not producing more crops in our healthcare system. How in the world could our healthcare system be improved by the government taking over the entire healthcare system?

I think there is a root problem that undermines this issue however. Somehow people in the world have managed to convince each other, and more significantly other Christians, that somehow holding people accountable to their life’s decisions is immoral. Let’s look at an example of this.

A person is significantly overweight and has also smoked for the better part of his life. According to most insurance companies, this individual would have to pay an enormous amount for health insurance, probably more than any one person could afford unless he made a pretty good salary or cut most of his other expenses drastically. For effect let’s just say that this person would have to pay 520 dollars per month on health insurance for very basic coverage. Let’s also pretend that this person is single and work’s a moderate to low paying job at 9.50 per hour. After taxes this individual would make approximately 1213 dollars per month. So, 520 dollars per month is almost half of his monthly wages. Assuming he has no outstanding debt or extravagant living expenses, this 520 health insurance is affordable. However, let’s figure that he has been irresponsible with his life as he has with his health and make up a mock budget. He thought he could afford a house and so he has mortgage, he smokes, he is overweight so he probably spends too much on unhealthy foods and eats a lot of it, and he also “needs” his cell phone.

Budget:
600/mo Mortgage
20/mo Cigarettes
50/mo Cell
200/mo Food
75/mo Fuel
50/mo Cable
150/mo Utilities
1145/mo Total

This mock budget leaves him 68 dollars per month. You can see that he could cut up to 120 a month on cigarettes, cable, and cell phone, but that would only put him at 188 per month which is still not even close to enough for health insurance. So what is the key here?

This person has made himself too risky to insure. By saying that everyone has a “right” to health insurance, you are saying that it is somehow immoral to deny this person health insurance, and therefore to not hold him accountable for his life decisions. Now if you feel that his life circumstances yielded him inept to avoid the circumstance he is in, then you may feel free to pay the extra 460 dollars per month to give him health insurance. But let us examine the ramifications of a government healthcare system.

I believe the estimate to date is somewhere around 46 million Americans without health insurance. Let’s assume that 5 million don’t have it because they don’t believe in the American medical system and so they’re out by choice. That leaves 41 million who are out because they can’t afford it. Let’s also assume that Obama holds up his end of the bargain and indeed gives all people healthcare coverage similar to that of our congressman. Such healthcare costs around 500 dollars per month for a healthy individual. Considering that the statistic for obesity in America is roughly 1/3 and the people who are without health insurance are without because they can’t afford it, we’ll increase it slightly to 3/7 of this 46 million without health insurance is overweight. For someone who is overweight to have the same kind of health insurance that Obama wants to give, it would cost approximately 800 dollars per month. 3/7 of 46 million is close to 20 million (19,714,286). 15,771,428,570 dollars just for the overweight and 13,142,857,000 for the “healthy”. 28,914,285,570 (almost 29 billion) dollars in the best case scenario per MONTH to cover health insurance for all these people.

Okay, so let’s be fair and assume that there’s some form of payment that averages out to around 200 dollars per month for all 46 million people who can’t afford these high payments. That’s still somewhere in the neighborhood of 19 billion dollars per month on health care paid for by..?

The Government: Talk about immoral; our government is already bankrupt, as evident by the ever decreasing value of the dollar. Besides, if you want really hurt these poor people, continue printing the money required to pay for their healthcare. They’ll have healthcare but they wont be able to afford anything else as inflation reduces their buying power to virtually nothing. Not only that, but those who can afford healthcare but are in the lower to middle parts of the middle class will also be reduced to poverty as the value of the dollar is diminished and while their health insurance costs may not rise, everything else will and may likely cause them to not longer afford health care either.
The Rich: Increased healthcare costs to the rich will not cover 19 billion dollars per month unless we’re talking about taking so much money from the rich that we are now reducing their value so significantly that they will likely move away from the United States taking their profitable businesses, jobs, etc. with them. And you thought that 7% unemployment was bad?

Price Fixes: You can fix the price on how much health services cost, but then you’re talking about making a ton of people very angry, probably reducing the quality of all health services significantly. You will probably see more deaths in hospitals from bad care than ever before, and it is likely that many doctors and other health professionals will quit their profession or go to another country in order to maintain their standard of living. The biggest issue with price fixing, is that the current value of the dollar is in the process of decreasing, and so if you fix costs hospitals will run out of money for medical supplies as the cost of those supplies increases despite the stagnant cost of medical care.

If you think healthcare is a moral issue, you are correct. If you think that healthcare is a right to all people and should be forced by the government and that somehow that is the epitome of moral healthcare then you are vastly mistaken.

God needs to affect our politics

2009-01-09T09:14:00.003-06:00

After a recent bout of watching YouTube videos of our new President Elect, I was inspired to compose this piece of writing which I feel is important for all Christian people to meditate on. Because of the nature of the topic I will dance around the issues for a moment, basically in an attempt to dispell and pre-concieved notions about where I stand, before I let you know where I stand, so bear with me.
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Look, if you want to be a Christian in government stop looking at Republicans as God’s army in our government for the “moral” issues. Stop looking at Democrats as God’s army for “social moral” issues. Become educated, don’t accept what’s shoved in your face by popular “Christian” speakers like Chuck Swindoll and the like. I personally don’t even know who such people would be (beyond Swindoll) because I refuse to have my beliefs decided for me.

It’s time for Christian people to live up to their responsibilities as citizens of this world. I know that in John 15:18-20 Jesus talks about how we are not of this world. But I think that we have corrupted what he was saying here to try to claim that Christ doesn’t care about our political responsibilities. We can see an easy contrast to this in how God attacks the ruling authorities of Israel and Judah as well as the individual people’s practices. Here’s where many people say, “Uhoh, not another liberal who is going to try to turn me into a democrat by saying that God is a socialist.” And to that I respond, “You’re right! I’m not a liberal who’s going to claim that God is a socialist.”

But what I am going to claim is that God honors our free-will and the reason that he “created us in his own image.” That is to say, God created us to have creative powers, both intellectually as well as physically and we therefore have the responsibility to utilize those creative powers in our best effort to serve him and consequentially serve humanity.

Therefore, we should no longer look at our government as being simple, and when stop we can by consequence of such a decision, understand the ramifications of our actions easily. Furthermore, we cannot pretend to think that we should try to be God for other (or godless) people, since God himself doesn’t force himself on others.

With that in mind, here is how government should be viewed. Government should be the highest example of how individuals should live their lives:

Economically: Is it any wonder that people are foreclosing on houses right now? Our government has been virtually bankrupt for more than 50 years they just keep avoiding the penalty for it by creating money out of thin air. I believe this is called counterfeiting and is a federal offense, and yet we allow our government to do this without any consequence (well the consequence is coming). People with socialist ideals see poor people as needing help from the government, and yet the government is causing more and more people to be poor by creating more money out of thin air. Inflation doesn’t hurt the rich, it hurts the poor. How can we as Christians endorse (which many do) this kind of activity? They simply are not educated to know the ramifications of such decisions.

Socially: Why is it that we have people living a homosexual lifestyle demanding to be allowed to marry? Our government says that it has some sort of right to regulate marriages and therefore marriage, which should be a religious institution, has become a government institution and has infringed on our religious freedoms. By giving tax benefits to marriages (which no one complains about until the government does something they don’t like) people choosing the homosexual lifestyle now have the grounds to claim that the government is discriminating against them by not allowing them to have access to the same types of benefits. If you give up your freedoms (keeping marriage solely as a religious institution) in order to gain a benefit (tax incentives) then you are endorsing unconstitutional and ungodly behavior of the government to simply remove the liberties of people. So what’s the issue? People do not evaluate the ramifications of such infringements because at the time their seems to be only benefits, but whether immediately or after a long period of time, the negatives of giving away liberties will come around and slap you in the face.

Internationally: What happens when we try to force God, or our sense of God on people? War is what happens; in this country and especially in our government we have idolized democracy and have repeatedly tried to force it on people. It could also be argued that many in our government have not idolized democracy but yet their recognition that the people have idolized it has motivated them to commit tremendous atrocities overseas in the name of democracy. Not only that, but our government cannot afford the money that’s being spent on our troops/bases/wars overseas. It is a threat to our national security and therefore a threat to the very purpose of government which is to protect our liberties.

These are just a few issues where the general populace of America is ignorant and far too many Christian voters. Education is the key folks, and it doesn’t come in the form of watching the news, watching the news comes after the education.

No continuity

2008-12-24T23:00:00.001-06:00

It is likely that very little continuity should be expected in this blog as I am simply going to be posting on various thoughts and ideas about God, the Bible, and the Church. I will discuss within that our moral responsibilities as citizens of our nation as well as citizens of the Kingdom of God. Feel free to comment and ask any questions of me that you would like.

Thank you for visiting!