DOZENS SHOT OVER MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND AS THE COLLAPSE OF CHICAGO ACCELERATES~COMPARABLE TO VENEZUELA

DOZENS SHOT OVER MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND AS THE COLLAPSE OF CHICAGO ACCELERATES

BY MICHAEL SNYDER

SEE: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/dozens-shot-over-memorial-day-weekend-as-the-collapse-of-chicago-accelerates; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Chaos and violence threaten to spiral out of control in America’s third largest city, and nobody seems to have any idea how to solve the problem.  After decades of control by the radical left, many parts of the “Windy City” have become rotting, decaying, gang-infested hellholes.  Just like Detroit, the city of Chicago is rapidly becoming a joke to the rest of the world, but a horribly corrupt political culture likely stands in the way of any type of major reform any time soon.  And just like much of the rest of the nation, a spirit of violence and civil unrest is rising in Chicago.  So far this year, the number of shootings in Chicago is up 50 percent compared to the same time period last year, and that was before we even got to Memorial Day weekend.  As of Sunday morning, at least 40 people had already been shot, and authorities were bracing for even more violence as the holiday weekend stretched on…


A string of nearly two dozen shootings on the West Side has pushed the number of people shot during the Memorial Day weekend to at least 40, with two more days to go.

As of early Sunday morning, the toll stood at four dead and 36 wounded across the city, including a 15-year-girl shot to death as she rode in a Jeep on Lake Shore Drive near Fullerton Avenue, police said.


The cries to fix what is wrong with Chicago are becoming increasingly desperate, but at this point the city is drowning in debt and is pretty much flat broke.

So the options for doing anything about this growing crisis are quite limited.

But that isn’t stopping prominent city leaders from speaking out.  According to the New York Times, Rev. Corey Brooks believes that “we could be looking at a blood bath” this summer if nothing changes…


“If something doesn’t change, if we don’t get jobs for these kids, if we don’t change the economic situation,I’m worried that we could be looking at a blood bath,” said the Rev. Corey Brooks, a pastor on the city’s South Side, a mostly African-American area where some of the shootings have been concentrated. “If something doesn’t happen, I fear that we’re potentially looking at one of the worst summers we’ve ever had.”

As of Friday morning, homicides in Chicago were up 52 percent in 2016, compared with the same period a year ago, and shootings had increased by 50 percent, though the pace of violence had slowed in recent weeks, the police said.


I believe that Rev. Brooks is correct, but he isn’t identifying the core of the problem.

Thanks in large part to unchecked illegal immigration, gang membership has been surging in Chicago.  Back in 2012, the Chicago Crime Commission estimated that there were 150,000 gang members living in the city, but of course by now that number is likely far higher.

No city in the United States has a higher population of gang members than Chicago does, and hundreds of factions are constantly battling for turf.  The police in Chicago insist that they have the situation under control, but everyone can see that they do not.

And how could they?  There are only 13,318 law enforcement officers of all types in the city of Chicago.  They are outnumbered by the gangs by much more than a 10 to 1 margin.  There is no way in the world that they are ever going to be able to stop the gang violence.  All they can do is hope to contain it.

Sadly, they are fighting a losing battle, because with each passing month thousands more gang members cross our southern border illegally and head directly for our major cities where they are warmly received by their gang brothers.

Perhaps this helps to explain why 3,000 millionaires left the city of Chicago last year.

Do you want to know somewhere else that has been controlled by the radical left for decades and that is now seeing chaos and violence spin out of control?

In Venezuela, we get to see what it looks like when an entire country starts to shut down.  The following comes from the New York Times…


The courts? Closed most days. The bureau to start a business? Same thing. The public defender’s office? That’s been converted into a food bank for government employees.

Step by step, Venezuela has been shutting down.

This country has long been accustomed to painful shortages, even of basic foods. But Venezuela keeps drifting further into uncharted territory.


At this point, more than 80 percent of all basic consumer products are in short supply, and some people have become so desperate that they are actually hunting cats and dogs for food.  My wife and I had a lot more to say about the rapidly deteriorating situation down in Venezueladuring a recent episode of our new television show.  It is so important to watch what is going on down there right now, because eventually the same things will be happening here in America too.

When society breaks down, people become very desperate, and crime spirals out of control.  The mafia and the gangs are having a field day at the moment, and the police are so overwhelmed that they can’t do much to stop them.

And if you need medical treatment down in Venezuela right now, you might as well forget it…


The Luis Razetti Hospital in the portal city of Barcelona looks like a war zone.

Patients can be seen balancing themselves on half-broken beds with days-old blood on their bodies.

They’re the lucky ones; most are curled up on the floor, blood streaming, limbs blackening.

Children lie among dirty cardboard boxes in the hallways without food, water or medication.

Without electricity or functioning machines, medics have had to create their own solutions. Two men who had surgery on their legs have their limbs elevated by makeshift slings made out of water bottles.


Most Americans would scoff at the suggestion that we could ever see scenes like that in the United States, but just a few years ago most Venezuelans would have probably said the exact same thing.

For so long, watchmen all over America have been endlessly warning people to get prepared.

But at some point, time runs out.

In fact, down in Venezuela time has already run out.  Store shelves all over the country are empty, there are chronic shortages of basic supplies, some people are hunting dogs and cats for food, and there has been an almost total breakdown of public services.

I wish that I could say that these kinds of conditions are only going to be limited to Venezuela.  But I cannot say that.  Great suffering is going to eventually spread all over the world, and that is going to include our own nation.

I hope that you are using this short period of relative stability wisely, because it will be gone way too soon.

BERNIE SANDERS' SICK UTOPIA: THE MALICIOUS MYTH OF "DEMOCRATIC" SOCIALISM

BERNIE SANDERS' SICK UTOPIA: 

THE MALICIOUS MYTH OF "DEMOCRATIC" SOCIALISM

BY Thomas DiLorenzo

SEE: http://the-trumpet-online.com/bernie-sanders-sick-utopia-the-malicious-myth-of-democratic-socialism/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

lewrockwell.com

In my forthcoming (July 18) book, The Problem with Socialism, I describe how socialism is always and everywhere an economic poison regardless of the form of government.  Socialism is socialism.  As Frederic Bastiat explained in his classic, The Law, the imposition of one social “plan” or set of “plans” on all of the society – a defining characteristic of all varieties of socialism — will have the same effects whether it is instituted by democracy or by a dictatorship.  Obamacare is Obamacare regardless of whether it was imposed by democracy or by a dictator.

All of history has proven that the effects of socialism are always and everywhere mass impoverishment; the destruction of civil liberties; tyrannical government; a population dependent on the state for survival; and the enrichment of the ruling class.  Everyone is equally impoverished while the political elite live high on the hog, whether it is the Soviet Union, African socialism, Latin American socialism, or any other kind of socialism.

At best, socialism turns people into spoiled children constantly demanding more and more freebies at the expense of . . . . who knows?  At worst, it becomes a totalitarian nightmare where dissenters are mass murdered by the millions, as was the case with twentieth-century socialism all over the world.

The latest display of the effects of the malicious myth of “democratic” socialism is the economic implosion of oil-rich Venezuela.  When the proud socialist Hugo Chavez became president he nationalized industries; redistributed land and businesses to political cronies; imposed pervasive, government-imposed price controls; and made himself popular by giving away lots of free stuff – even houses.  He was a Latin American Bernie Sanders, in other words. The entire socialist world spoke of the new “socialist paradise” of Venezuela.

But socialism is always and everywhere economic poison because of several fundamental reasons.  It destroys work incentives for one thing.  It is also guided by the false pretense that a few politicians can somehow do a better job of possessing and utilizing the detailed knowledge that millions of consumers, entrepreneurs, workers, business managers, investors, and market participants who make real market economies work possess.  And it foolishly asserts that rational economic decisions can be made without the benefit of private property, market prices based on supply and demand, and a market feedback mechanism that rewards those who serve their customers well with profits while punishing those who do not with losses.  By ignoring these realities the economic implosion of Venezuela was perfectly predictable and inevitable.

Venezuela has become reminiscent of the old Soviet Union where there were shortages of everything because of the economic chaos caused by the elimination of markets based on private property and prices determined by supply and demand.  A May 21 article in The Telegraph by Szu Ping Chan about how socialism turned Venezuela into “debt and hyperinflation hell” describes how people there now routinely “queue alongside hundreds of other Venezuelans for food, nappies, milk, and other basic goods.”  Everything is in short supply – or no supply – thanks to Chavez’s socialist price controls.  Black markets are the only thing saving the Venezuelan economy.

A recent “yahoo” news article entitled “Venezuela: Where a Hamburger is official $170” wrote of how stores are shuttered; restaurants are empty; “nobody is buying anything”; there are long lines of people waiting around stores for something – anything – that they can use to barter for things they actually need.  This again is exactly reminiscent of daily life in the old Soviet Union.

Venezuela has become one of the worst places in the world to do business, ranking 186^th out of 189 in a World Bank index of “business friendliness.”  Only Libya, South Sudan, and Eritrea were worse.  Political corruption is rampant; of course.  No one can be in business without paying the “appropriate” bribes to one or another political hacks and criminals.

People in Venezuela “cannot afford to get ill because when you turn up at the hospital there is nothing,” says one Venezuelan cited by The Telegraph.  Sick people are desperate for antibiotics, which are all but non-existent.

Explosive government spending combined with declining oil prices made Venezuela a “debt hell” as Chavez and his successor, fellow socialist demagogue Nicolas Maduro, refused to admit the folly of their ways and resorted to massive money printing.  Today a hamburger costs the equivalent of $170; a night in a hotel is $6,900; and middle-class monthly salaries savaged by inflation are worth about $35.  Food prices more than tripled just in the past month; and the annual inflation rate is 4,505 percent.  One Venezuelan interviewed for theTelegraph article said that he had to spend more than half his monthly income just on toilet tissue.  Socialism has resulted in the Zimbabwe-ization of Venezuela.

The Venezuelan government fails to perform what all governments claim to be their primary responsibility: maintaining law and order in society.  Caracas is now the world’s most violent city in the world according to the Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, which computes such rankings.

The drinking water in Flint, Michigan is like fresh, Rocky Mountain spring water compared to the drinking water in Venezuela, described by a May 29New York Times article about the country’s “hunger, blackouts, and government shutdown” as “a brownish color” that makes people sick, with many Venezuelans contracting “skin irritations from showering . . .”  One woman is quoted as saying that because she has been showering with this government water “her body is filled with small bubbles and they sting horribly.”

Like all other socialist demagogues, Venezuela’s wealthy, living-lives-of-luxury, socialist political elite blame all the disasters they have created on various bogeymen, from “the American government’s efforts to destabilize the country” (according to the New York Times), to “a drought that has crippled Venezuela’s ability to generate hydroelectric power.”  This last reason is reminiscent of how the Soviets blamed the results of their disastrous policy of socialized agriculture on seventy straight years of “drought.”

Just about anyone who is able to leave Venezuela is doing so.  So far, it’s a much easier task than leaving that other Caribbean socialist “paradise,” Cuba.

Venezuela has joined a very long list of countries whose economies have been utterly destroyed by just a few years of socialism.  Meanwhile, in the U.S. hordes of “millennials,” the first PC generation, a generation that has been indoctrinated since kindergarten in the alleged evils of capitalism and taught to worship Big Government as their savior, are wildly cheering a 75-year-old communist who wants to be president on the promise of making America the next Venezuela.  (Like the Soviet communists who called their government theUnion of Soviet Socialist Republics, not the Union of Soviet Communist Republics, I don’t distinguish between “communists” and “socialists”; they’re all the same gang of looters, frauds, demagogues, and tyrants).

FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION-PART 1 OF 3~FFRF WANTS CHICAGO HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL FIRED FOR HIS CHRISTIANITY

FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION-

PART 1 OF 3

BY DEBRA RAE

SEE: http://www.newswithviews.com/Rae/debra280.htm; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Part 1 -“I’m Secular and I Vote” Campaign

Free thought and pride attract atheists, agnostics, and skeptics to the largest secular association in North America—the non-profit, educational Freedom from Religion Foundation. FFRF Co-President Dan Barker opines, "Much of the movement away from religion in America is being driven by Millennials, many of whom will be voting for the first time this year."[1] Hence, Parker adds, "We need secular voters to be vocal about their beliefs, or lack thereof, while rejecting efforts to push religious dogma on the nation."

This, of course, is no small effort. The Foundation boasts 23,500 members, 20 chapters across America, not to mention secular student alliances. Nearly 8,000 secular voters are reaching out to educate the public about their beliefs. FFRF awards thousands of dollars in prizes for winning student essays; and they distribute "I'm Secular and I Vote" buttons, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and educational material.[2]

What Exactly is Religion? [3]

To be freed from something requires grasp of what is being discarded. So what exactly is the illusive concept of religion? Surprising to some, whether Judeo-Christian, Marxist-Leninist, secularist, or Islamic, all worldviews by nature are religious. Each defines an ultimate point of reference that dramatically influences every possible discipline from science to the arts, ethics to law, geo-politics to economics. All speak to an ideology, or movement, that offers some overarching approach to comprehend God (god), the world, and man’s relationship to both.

“Freedom from religion” is better understood as switching religion from one brand to another. Allow me to explain. Classical orthodoxy, Christian or Jewish, broadly typifies “religion,” as most perceive it, but so does secular humanism. By definition, religion sports its own distinctive vocabulary, sacred symbolism, grand metanarrative, exclusive truth exercised by faith, code of ethics/morality, creed, rituals, evangelism, and discipleship. Logically, to discard religion is to separate from the above; secularism instead exhibits all of them.

Judicial Acknowledgment

In The Church of the Holy Trinity v. U.S. (1892), the Supreme Court ruled that our civilization and institutions are emphatically Christian.[4] In the early sixties, however, two landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases made way for secular humanism by giving the proverbial boot to traditional faith (in the form of school prayer and Bible reading). It was then that secular humanism emerged as a non-theistic religion whose organized system of beliefs is upheld devotedly by some 7.3 million humanists, and counting.[5] Both Christianity and secularism have received judicial acknowledgement.

Distinctive Vocabulary

Keep in mind humanism may or may not center on a supernatural being. Cosmic- and secular- humanism both are organized systems of beliefs and rituals upheld or pursued with zeal and devotion. Their relativistic values exalt human worth based on self-determination through reason.

By censoring God-speak and pilfering biblical phraseology, secularists craft their own lexicon. Take the word, “conversion,” meaning “a turning”—whether literally or figuratively, ethically or religiously. In the Bible, conversion is associated with repentance and faith.[6] In the secular world, Harvard Professor Steven Pinker boldly testifies, “I never outgrew my conversion to atheist at thirteen.”[7]

Honorary FFRF Board member Julia Sweeny argues, “How dare the religious use the term ‘born again’?” Sweeney reserves the phrase for fellow freethinkers who, like her, have ostensibly thrown off the shackles of religion. The Greek word for “born again,”[8] used first by Jesus and plagiarized by Sweeny, means “to beget again into a new life.”[9] More specifically, “to be born from above.”

In challenging the phrase “under God,” born-again convert to secularism Mike Newdow complained to the U.S. Supreme Court, “I am an atheist. I don't believe in God. And every school morning my child is asked to stand up, face that flag, put her hand over her heart, and say that her father is wrong.” Apparently, in Newdow’s world, affirmations other than his own are personally demeaning and, thus, universally offensive. This freethinking father knows best when it comes to a god that, in his view, doesn’t even exist.[10]

Grand Metanarrative (“Big Story”)

Defined by Huston Smith as “the clearest opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos can pour into human existence,” the religion of secularism merges symbolism with mythology and Jungian psychology espousing the “higher self.”[11] By self-identifying as “Mother Earth’s consciousness,” cosmic humanists blur the line between physics and metaphysics. Theirs is a pseudo-Christian patchwork of spirit-ism and avant-garde, “fourth-force” psychology.

For these, all life is energy; composite energy is god; and the promised expectation is “life beyond the grave” by becoming god. Most often by means of meditation, achieving an altered state of consciousness enables the Imperial Self to give way to collectivist spirituality. Cosmic humanists attain to cosmic- or group- consciousness by aligning and then fusing with the universal life force. The spiritual climb upward (evolution from embryo-god to “Christhood” through multiple reincarnations) is one grand story![12]

Secular humanists embrace perhaps an even bigger story by reasoning there once existed absolutely nothing. Nothing happened to that nothing until it magically exploded (for no known reason) and thereby created everything and everywhere. A bunch of the exploded everything unpredictably rearranged itself (again, for no known reason) into self-replicating bits, which (to make a long story short) turned into dinosaurs. This constitutes yet another tall tale, or “big story.”

In comparison, the grand metanarrative of Jews and Christian is this: “In the beginning, God.”[13]

Vision for a Utopian Ideal [14]

Simply put, the overarching vision for a Christian is humanity united with (and conformed into the likeness of) God’s Son, coupled with full restoration of the universe to its rightful order under God the Father.[15] In contrast, evolutionary theory at the epicenter of secularism self-characterizes as an expression of “merciless hate.”[16] By specifically excluding “useless eaters,”[17]“miserable, degraded savages,”[18] and those deemed “unfit and defective,”[19] the progressive utopian ideal sidesteps the Golden Rule[20] and Great Commission.[21]

In the words of the Trilateral Commission’s founding director Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Marxism represents a further vital and creative stage in the maturing of man’s universal vision.” American writer and editor Whittaker Chambers once fingered communism as the “second oldest religion.”[22]Understand that “non-sustainable non-producers” relegated to the low end of humanity’s totem pole include the elderly, stay-at-home moms, and those incapacitated physically or mentally. In the Marxist paradigm, all human rights are granted, controlled, and/or withdrawn by government consisting of elitists deemed more highly evolved and enlightened than the masses.

Conclusion

Toward developing our thesis (Freedom from religion is better understood as switching religion from one brand to another.), we’ve established that secularism and religion are accompanied by judicial acknowledgement, a distinctive vocabulary, grand metanarrative (“big story”), and vision for an ideal—all of which inform voters and influence the course of a nation.

More to follow in Part 2.

Footnotes:

1. http://ffrf.org/ (Accessed 3 April 2016)2. 'I'm Secular and I Vote' nationwide campaign launched by Freedom From Religion Foundation to engage millions of non-religious voters. (Accessed 3 April 2016)3. Scripture describes us as body, soul (i.e., mind/ feelings) and spirit (i.e., that which yearns for, and relates to, God). On the other hand, “religion” generally speaks to ritual—a means by which man seeks to please God and, thus, win over His favor by self-effort. In contrast, Christianity is a loving God’s reaching out to man. “We love Him because He first loved us,” the Bible says. Christ came to “seek and save” the lost, not to reward ritual. Many Christians (myself included) do not identify with being “religious” (representing man’s lame attempts at reaching God). We are, instead, “spiritual” in that we respond to His unconditional favor as we yearn for and relate to God “in spirit and in truth.” The Christian God initiates relationship through His son, Jesus. In a word, it’s all about Him, not human effort, although good works naturally follow faith (James 2:18).4. 143 US 457-458, 465-471, 36L ed 226, United States Supreme Court, 29 February 18925. Walter R. Martin. The Kingdom of the Cults (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, Inc., Publishers, 1977). 18-23.6. Acts 3:19 & 26, 11:21, 20:21, 26:207. http://ffrf.org/about/ffrf-honorary-board (Accessed 3 April 2016)8. http://biblehub.com/greek/313.htm (Accessed 3 April 2016)9. The classic biblical passage references a conversation Jesus had with a prominent Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin, whom Jesus instructed to become “born from above,” John 3:1-21.
10. http://ffrf.org/about/ffrf-honorary-board (Accessed 3 April 2016)11. Huston Smith. The Religions of Man (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1965).11-12.12. The process of mystical (cosmic) evolution holds promise for humanity to awaken to esoteric knowledge. Presumably multiple reincarnations with upward mobility (called transmigration) provide opportunities needed for the modern mystic to ascend from embryo god to pantheistic oneness with divine essence.13. Genesis 1:114. “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he,” Proverbs 29:18. "Vision" prophecy denotes the revelation of God's will. Teaching a higher than mere human morality, prophets stood as witnesses to the power of truth. Its absence is marked by confusion, disorder, and rebellion. Uncontrolled, people fall into grievous excesses, which nothing but high principles can restrain (Pulpit Commentary).15. Introduced in Genesis 1:26, the Plan of God destines believers to spiritual maturity, wholeness, and completion (Ep. 4:13) with Christ Himself being formed within yielded vessels (Ga. 4:9) until self-life gives way to the Christ-life; and supernatural works, as His, are accomplished in and through them (Jn. 14:12; Ga. 2:20). Although, in God’s Plan, believers partake of the Divine nature (2 Pe. 1:4), God’s awe-inspiring Deity and humankind’s frail humanity remain indisputably separate. Jesus Christ receives all the glory although He honors His Bride as one whose light is like unto a stone most precious (Re. 21:11). Indeed His Name will be in their foreheads, describing well the singularly focused thought life of His devoted, loving Bride (Re. 22: 4), “whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21).16. In a 1905 speech, the great statesman, William Jennings Bryan claimed “the Darwinian Theory represents man reaching his present perfection by the operation of the law of hate, the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak.”17. Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger presumed blacks, immigrants, and indigents to be “useless eaters,” "...human weeds,” and “reckless breeders,” “spawning ... human beings who never should have been born," Pivot of Civilization.18. On 17 December 1832, as part of his world tour aboard H.M.S. Beagle, Charles Darwin arrived in Tierra del Fuego at the southernmost tip of South America. Here he got his first view of the native inhabitants, whom he described as “miserable degraded savages,” a phrase he repeated often in his journal concerning these people. (Accessed 29 January 2013)
19. Dean Pernkopf (“National Socialism and Science”) used the phrase, “unfit and defective,” while addressing university faculty and students of Vienna, stronghold of the new Reich (from selected essays of Gerald Weissmann, 1998).
20. Luke 6:31—“And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.”
21. Mark 16:15—“And he said to them, ‘Go you into all the world, and preach the gospel (good news) to every creature.’”
22. Animal Farm Revisited with "Heavy 100" Radio Talk Host, Chuck Morse, on TRUTH Talk Beyond the Sound Bite with Debra Rae. (5 April 2016).
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SEE ALSO:
http://christiannews.net/2016/05/31/atheist-activist-group-wants-illinois-principal-fired-for-promoting-christianity-to-students/
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FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION
PART 2 of 3

SEE: http://www.newswithviews.com/Rae/debra281.htm; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

“I’m Secular and I Vote” Campaign

Any religion, by definition, sports its own distinctive vocabulary, sacred symbolism, grand meta narrative, exclusive truth exercised by faith, code of ethics/morality, creed, rituals, evangelism, and discipleship. As is true with any worldview, secularism by nature is a religion. Logically, to discard religion is to separate from the above, but secularism instead exhibits them all. Hence, “freedom from religion” is better understood as switching religion from one brand to another.

In Part 1, we established that judicial acknowledgement, a distinctive vocabulary, grand metanarrative, and vision for the ideal accompany secularism and religion. All inform voters and influence the course of a nation.

The late journalist Christopher Hitchens reasoned, “Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.”[1] Of course, one could counter, “Since it is obviously inconceivable that all secularists (or progressives) can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.” But I digress.

Belief Claiming Exclusive Truth

Naturalists reproach biblical apologists for fortifying dogma by inserting “the God of the gaps”; however, in a letter to Dr. Asa Gray, their hero Charles Darwin admitted, “Imagination must fill up very wide blanks.” Despite these blanks, naturalists embrace “settled science” as exclusive truth.
Having studied under the famous scholar, Gamaliel, the Apostle Paul had legitimate claim to knowledge of truth.

Because experience shows God’s unfailing strength as perfected in weakness, Paul deemed God’s grace to be sufficient and chose wisely to “boast” in his own weaknesses so that “the power of Christ might rest upon him.”[2] In Darwin’s world, to the contrary, the weakest links are expunged as “maladjusted morons and misfits.”[3] In shunning lesser human specimens, secular elitists worship at their own makeshift altar of exclusivity.

• Exclusive Truth: Settled Science

Mind you, Darwin hated his time at school and applied himself minimally. He left Edinburgh without a degree; and, at Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he studied theology, he earned what was regarded as an “ordinary” degree. Darwin’s body of work was not wholly original, as one might expect. Instead, its borrowed tenets were lifted from a poem written by Charles’ grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin. The latter practiced an 18th-century pseudo-science (Galvanism) that involved running electrical currents through corpses of dead animals to bring them back to life.

Both wellborn-and-bred British elitists of their day, forward-thinking cousins Darwin and Galton identified with the dark side of the Enlightenment. Both rejected democratic elements, but some semblance of science suited their common cause.[4] Darwin’s legendary treatise, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, filled the bill nicely. In 1993, a number of intellectually dissatisfied scientists representing a variety of disciplines took a fresh look at Darwinism in light of ever exploding scientific knowledge. Unlike Darwin, well-studied, degreed, and highly decorated scientists found irrefutable evidence for Intelligent Design.

• Accepted by Faith

FFRF professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, Jerry Coyne, Ph.D., authored, Why Evolution is True. For Darwin’s theory to fly, faith in random genetic changes, at every turn, must provide advantage in an organism’s struggle to survive. This is not only highly improbable; it’s impossible. Even the evolutionary apologist British zoologist Julian Huxley ceded that a mutation signifies abnormality, not evolutionary advancement. Students of Darwinian thought are expected to overlook the fact that distinctive human attributes (i.e., language, posture/gait, moral/religious sensibilities, art/music appreciation) are not explicable by variations—i.e., multiple mutations or genetic shuffling. If it isn’t observable, repeatable, and measurable, and as long as scientists ask questions and apply the scientific method, science is not settled. My point? Evolutionary theory is just that: a theory.

Given the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Irreducible Complexity, and Law of Mutation, chance takes even more faith to believe than creation by an Intelligent Designer of an astonishingly ordered universe! Professor Hoyle compared the Darwinian process to the unlikelihood of a tornado’s sweeping through a junkyard and thereby producing a Boeing 747 from materials therein! Odds of this ever happening are astronomical.

Positive Impact on Society

Wrongly so, freethinkers credit persons unconstrained by religion with most social and moral progress throughout the history of Western civilization. Marketed to appeal to man’s best intentions (the common good, survival, advanced societies), evolutionary thought instead perpetuates a host of societal ills. Whether by abortion, infanticide, forced sterilization, euthanasia, or assisted suicide, “useless eaters” are targeted for extinction; and “the unfit” remain subject to human experimentalism and pharmacological abuse.[5]

Darwin’s theory validated his “good old boys” network of British elitists; and, arguably, it spawned socio-political atrocities of monumental proportion. His flawed line of secularist, elitist thinking is precisely what spawned slavery, segregation, racist immigration laws (to turn away post-war Jewish refugees), the infamous Tuskegee Project, and application of the “one-drop rule” to ensure racial purity/ hygiene. Progress? Positive impact on society? I think not.[6]

On the other hand, Dr. James Allan Francis eloquently explained, “Today Jesus is the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind’s progress. All the armies that have ever marched, all the navies that have ever sailed, all the parliaments that have ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned—put together—have not affected the life of mankind on earth as powerfully as that one solitary life.”[7]

Sacred Symbolism

FFRF lawyers defend distribution of tracts (called “non-tracts” in the secularist’s lexicon) and activity books on display tables in public schools. Purported advocates of separation between church and state, secularists in Orlando and Denver nonetheless display pamphlets that address sex in the Bible and problems with the Ten Commandments (you know, religion). Foundation co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor assures authorities that the activity book for middle- and high school- students teaches “kindness” and, if only by limiting the satanic theme to symbols in drawings, “the basic morals that we all agree on.”[8]

Occult symbolism gets a pass, but not prayer emojis. Recently, FFRF called on Apple CEO Tim Cook to remove all prayer emojis (symbols of cruel and unusual proselytizing) from iPhones and other devices. The Foundation’s Co-President Dan Barker warns, "Apple may not be afraid of the FBI, but they should be afraid of the millions of secular consumers who can't stand these emojis."[9]

Code of Ethics/Morality

Although Paul Kurtz insists that the Humanist Manifesto is committed to reason, science, and democracy, secular humanism is really secular de-humanism. After all, Kurtz’s worldview recognizes no mandate to celebrate, facilitate, or protect life. Instead, it advances an individual’s right to “die with dignity”—whether by euthanasia or suicide. Because secularists perceive humans as mere products of time and chance, it stands to reason that life is devoid of elevated meaning. Darwinian theory defers to the paramount principle that “ends justify means.”

Freethinking poet-historian Jennifer Michael Hecht reasons, “If there is no god — and there isn't — then we [humans] made up morality. And I'm very impressed.” Claim to have created from nothing something that all can agree upon is indeed impressive—but only as a feat of fancy (a miracle, if you will). In reality, despite secular claims, basic morals that “we all agree on” don’t exist.

Creed (Dogma) and Catechism

Columnist for The Nation, Katha Pollitt regularly and energetically proclaims the atheist’s creed, “There is no God.” In accordance with this creed, secularists must transcend “inflexible moral and religious ideologies.” True to the secular catechism, believers celebrate, practice, and reward “plain speaking” on the shortcomings of religion. Accordingly, at the FFRF 39th annual convention in Pittsburgh (October 2016), theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss will be awarded the Emperor Has No Clothes Award.[10]

The Humanist Manifesto urges “people of good will” to work together toward “human ends,” but notable secularist, Oxford professor emeritus Richard Dawkins, characterizes the God of the Old Testament as “the most unpleasant character in all fiction.” While Dawkins claims for himself the right to freedom from offense, he denies Christians and Jews the same courtesy.

Conclusion

Both worldviews, secularism and religion, hold claim to exclusive truth accepted by faith, a creed (dogma), and sacred symbolism. Exercising an identified code of ethics and morality, each claims to impact society positively. To insist that secularism frees one from religion is incredulous; nonetheless, the Freedom From Religion Foundation accepts the one as truth, the other as fancy.

More to follow in Part 3

Click here for part -----> 1, 2, 3,

© 2016 Debra Rae - All Rights Reserved

Footnotes:

1. (Denton, Evolution, A Theory in Crisis, 24) and retrieved 29 January 2013. 2. 2 Corinthians 12:9—“And he said unto me, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee’: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”3. During the 1960 Presidential campaign, Margaret Sanger referred to Catholics as “black moles invading our buildings of democracy.” Sanger called for the segregation of “morons, misfits, and the maladjusted” and for the sterilization of races that she deemed to be genetically inferior (i.e., blacks).4. Chuck Morse. The Monkey Trial: Evolutionary Politics in the Post-Modern Age. (Boston: City Metro Enterprises, 2013).5. In 1961, Aldous Huxley, an important evolutionary thinker, lectured at the California Medical School in San Francisco where he stated: “And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. As part of a plan to help pilots, sailors, and infantry troops become capable of superhuman performance, many German soldiers were high on Pervitin (speed) when they went into battle. However, Nazis failed to monitor side effects. (Accessed 29 January 2013). 6. Angelo M. Codevilla. The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It (New York: Beaufort Books, 2010), 26-51.7. http://www.changinglives.org.au/solitary-life.html (Accessed 9 April 2016)8. Colleen Slevin, Associated Press. “Satanic Book, Bible Sex Tracts Provided at Colorado Schools” (Seattle: The Seattle Times, 2 April 2016). News A5. 9. FFRF calls on Apple to immediately remove prayer emojis from all iPhones.(Accessed 9 April 2016)
10. http://ffrf.org/outreach/convention (Accessed 9 April 2016)
______________________________________________________
FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION
PART 3 of 3

“I’m Secular and I Vote” Campaign

“Freedom from religion” is better understood as switching religion from one brand to another. Secularism and religion sport their own distinctive vocabulary, sacred symbolism, grand metanarrative, exclusive truth exercised by faith, code of ethics/morality, creed, rituals, evangelism, and discipleship. Logically, to discard religion is to separate from all of the above, but secularism instead exhibits them.

Rituals (Superstition, De-baptism, Confirmation, Invocations and Prayer)
“Luck” smacks of superstition. Even so, Freedom from Religion Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor is named as one of the “lucky” eighteen percent of fellow members who grew up freethinking. As such, she was “spared baptism by water, fire or Sunday school.” Officially renouncing the primitive rite of baptism to which “the luckless” were so cruelly subjected, participants exchange creeds, dogmas, and alleged superstitions of one belief system with those of another. This they do by obtaining genuine De-Baptismal Certificates. (No joke!)

Extracting themselves from any claims of religious affiliation or membership based on baptismal records, secularists join and pay dues (i.e., tithes and offerings) to the fellowship of Freedom from Religion. Congregants aggressively challenge prayer spaces at the University of Iowa, for example; however, following the Supreme Court’s injudicious decision “blessing” sectarian prayer, the Foundation rewards freethinkers who ask for equal time to give secular invocations.[1]

• Celebratory Music Ministry

At the Reason Rally June 2016, celebration of secularism at the Lincoln Memorial will be paired with entertainment and parties that draw hand-clapping, arm raising, closed-eyes enthusiasts eager to sway to the beat of hip-hop artist Baba Brinkman, songwriter-artist Sophia Kameron, and Keith Lowell Jensen of Atheist Christmas fame. This is one Camp Meeting secularists don’t want to miss![2]

Discipleship

In accord with the Bible, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”[3] Even as Christians serve God, secularists are busy about the work of their master, mammon—this, by vigorously contesting what they view as unsavory practices in the public forum and bad legislation.[4]

• Youth Groups

As churches target youth, so do secularists. Last year Thomas Sheedy served as event organizer for the Long Island Atheists (i.e., youth ministry). Furthermore, this high school senior was granted a student activist award of $5,000 for founding the Secular Student Alliance at Ward Melville High School in East Setauket, New York. Fifty-one students (i.e., converts) expressed interest, a teacher heeded the call to become their adviser (i.e., pastor-teacher), and goals were set (i.e., vision).

Giving Testimony; Evangelism with Promise of “A More Excellent Way” [5]

To the biblical phrase, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God,” secularists add, “But the wise person says it out loud.”[6] Through a television ad, for example, Ron Reagan describes himself as “an unabashed atheist, not afraid of burning in hell.” In a newspaper article about his non belief, honorary FFRF Board member Daniel C. Dennett wrote, “I’ve come to realize it’s time to sound the alarm.” Heeding the call, evangelists Richard Dawkins, Mike Newdow, and Steven Pinker promote non-theism as their “critical work.”

What better way to evangelize than by campaigning through FFRF’s “I'm Secular and I Vote” Campaign? In coordination with other major free thought associations, chapters across the nation spread the word via paid digital media, national TV ads, and efforts to mobilize students on college campuses.[7]

Tax Deductible Financial Giving

FFRF is a member of Atheist Alliance International, the Secular Coalition for America, and the Richard Dawkins Non-Believers Giving Aid. As is the case with churches and their ministries, all dues and donations on behalf of “nonbelief relief” are tax-deductible.

Persecution Assuaged by Promise of a Sweet By and By

In Sheedy’s view, “Christians will not find a speck of dust on our nation's soil where they are persecuted as a group.” Many Christians (myself included) disagree.[8] Nonetheless, having abandoned his childhood indoctrination into Roman Catholicism, Sheedy sought legal aid for his struggles. In his view, every state in the country is under threat of scorn from whom he characterizes as “the losing majority.”

• Heaven/Hell

Secularists reference their own versions of heaven and hell. Indeed, FFRF conventions welcome “hell-bound atheists.” In musing about “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” freethinking lyricist Yip Harburg wishes upon a star (i.e., prays). Waking up in some ethereal place where clouds are far behind him, Yip’s troubles melt like lemon drops (i.e., heaven).[9]

Conclusion

For secularists to declare freedom from religion is folly because humanism (whether secular or cosmic) fully qualifies as a religion. As the saying goes, “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” In America, folks are free to follow the dictates of conscience. When secularists demand a voice in the public arena, they are exercising their First Amendment right. The same right applies to Jews and Christians.

In the words of Coretta Scott King, “I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.”[10] Accordingly, Rosa Parks hoped to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free so others would be free as well.[11] For secularists to deny fellow religionists right to “free exercise” is to undercut and possibly even forfeit their own right. George Washington warned, “If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”[12] A word to the wise: Especially in an election year, even self-serving secularists do well to champion the First Amendment right for all Americans.

Click here for part -----> 1, 2, 3,

© 2016 Debra Rae - All Rights Reserved

Footnotes:

1. Secular group challenges prayer spaces at UI (Accessed 9 April 2016)2. http://www.reasonrally.org/ (Accessed 9 April 2016)3. Matthew 6:24—“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”4. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Amendment 1 of the Constitution of the United States of America (15 December 1791)5. 1 Corinthians 12:31—“ But covet earnestly the best gifts; and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.”6. Psalm 14:1, 53:1—“The fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt; they have done abominable works; there is none that doeth good.” (Curiously, the Hebrew words rendered fool in the book of Psalms denote one who is morally deficient.)7. 'I'm Secular and I Vote' nationwide campaign launched by Freedom From Religion Foundation to engage millions of non-religious voters (Accessed 9April 2016)8. Persecution of Christians in America: It's Not Just 'Over There' (Accessed 11 April 2016)9. Judy Garland Lyrics (Accessed 9 April 2016)
10. Matching Quotes (Accessed 12 April 2016)11. Matching Quotes (Accessed 12 April 2016)12. Matching Quotes (Accessed 12 April 2016)