THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
Pope’s American Visit Had A Moral Facade For Global Governance
QUOTE FROM HITLER: “Providence has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity. I am freeing man from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge, from the dirty and degrading self-mortification of a false vision called conscience and morality, and from the demands of a freedom and independence which only a very few can bear.”
- Rauschning, Hitler Speaks, p. 222
TO SAVE THE PLANET, INDULGENCES MUST BE BOUGHT WITH
2 Timothy 3:1-7-"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
ABOVE: MOLLY & MALLOY'S BARTENDER
WAVE OF DEPRAVITY FOR POPE FRANCIS;
ROMAN CATHOLICISM: STORING UP WRATH FOR THE DAY OF WRATH
TONY MIANO & A TEAM OF STREET EVANGELISTS ENCOUNTER HARD HEARTS IN PHILADELPHIA FOR THE POPE FEST
Published on Oct 2, 2015
Part Mardis Gras; part religious observance; part zombie walk. The last day of Pope Francis' (Jorge's) visit to Philadelphia saw a crescendo of idolatry and blasphemy. After the million-person out door trampling under foot the blood of Christ (The Mass), the people washed over the intersection of Broad Street and Walnut Street like a wave of depravity.
Jeff Rose, founder of JeremiahCry Ministries and organizer of the "No Hope in the Pope" outreach, preached this powerful open-air message, during which he called the masses to repent of their sin. He warned them if they did not heed and obey the gospel they would continue to store up wrath for the day of wrath.
More Idolatry at the Philadelphia Pope Fest
POPE-ADELPHIA
FOR SOUTH PHILADELPHIA CATHOLICS,
POPE, FOOTBALL, BOOZE, & CARNAL CARNIVAL
ARE ALL COMPATIBLE!
AND THEY, AND MANY APOSTATE PROTESTANT 'EVANGELICALS', BELIEVE THEY ARE CHRISTIANS?
POPE FRANCIS IS "GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY", AND
"WE ALL DRINK" & DRESS IN CLERICAL ATTIRE FOR FUN TOO!
Futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil predicts humans are going to develop emotions and characteristics of higher complexity as a result of connecting their brains to computers.
“We’re going to be funnier. We’re going to be sexier. We’re going to be better at expressing loving sentiment,” Kurzweil said at a recent discussion at Singularity University. He is involved in developing artificial intelligence as a director of engineering at Google but was not speaking on behalf of the company.
Kurzweil predicts that in the 2030s, human brains will be able to connect to the cloud, allowing us to send emails and photos directly to the brain and to back up our thoughts and memories. This will be possible, he says, via nanobots -- tiny robots from DNA strands -- swimming around in the capillaries of our brain. He sees the extension of our brain into predominantly nonbiological thinking as the next step in the evolution of humans -- just as learning to use tools was for our ancestors.
And this extension, he says, will enhance not just our logical intelligence but also our emotional intelligence. “We’re going to add more levels to the hierarchy of brain modules and create deeper levels of expression,” he said. To demonstrate, he gave a hypothetical scenario with Google co-founder Larry Page.
“So I’m walking along, and I see Larry Page coming, and I think, ‘I better think of something clever to say.’ But my 300 million modules in my neocortex isn’t going to cut it. I need a billion in two seconds. I’ll be able to access that in the cloud -- just like I can multiply intelligence with my smartphone thousands fold today.”
In addition to making us cleverer in hallways, connecting our brains to the Internet will also make each of us more unique, he said.
“Right now, we all have a very similar architecture to our thinking,” Kurzweil said. “When we can expand it without the limitations of a fixed enclosure" -- he pointed to his head -- "we we can actually become more different."
“People will be able to very deeply explore some particular type of music in far greater degree than we can today. It’ll lead to far greater individuality, not less.”
This view is in stark contrast to a common perception, often portrayed in science fiction, that cyborg technologies make us more robotic, less emotional and less human. This concern is expressed by Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, head of neuroengineering at Duke University, who fears that if we rely too much on machines, we’ll lose diversity in human behavior because computers operate in black and white -- ones and zeros -- without diversion.
"We’re going to expand the brain’s neocortex and become more godlike."
But Kurzweil believes that being connected to computers will make us more human, more unique and even godlike.
“Evolution creates structures and patterns that over time are more complicated, more knowledgable, more creative, more capable of expressing higher sentiments, like being loving,” he said. “It’s moving in the direction of qualities that God is described as having without limit.”
“So as we evolve, we become closer to God. Evolution is a spiritual process. There is beauty and love and creativity and intelligence in the world -- it all comes from the neocortex. So we’re going to expand the brain’s neocortex and become more godlike.”
But will brain nanobots actually move out of science fiction and into reality, or are they doomed to the fate of flying cars? Like Kurzweil, Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab, thinks that nanobots in our brains could be the future of learning, allowing us, for example, to load the French language into the bloodstream of our brains. James Friend, a professor of mechanical engineering at UC San Diego focused on medical nanotechnology, thinks that we're only two to five years away from being able to effectively use brain nanobots, for example to prevent epileptic seizures.
However, getting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would likely be very difficult, Friend told The WorldPost. He thinks approval would take “anywhere from only a few years to never happening because of people being concerned about swimming mysterious things into your head and leaving them there," he said.
Other scientists are skeptical that brain nanobots will be safe and effective anytime soon or at all, largely due to how little we currently understand about how the brain works. One such scientist is David Linden, professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who thinks the timing of Kurzweil’s estimation that nanobots will be in our brains in the 2030s is premature. Linden says there are huge obstacles, such as adding a nanobot power source, evading cells that attack foreign bodies and avoiding harming the proteins and sugars in the tiny spaces between brain cells.
Although the science is far from application in brains, nanotechnology has long been heralded as a potential game changer in medicine, and the research is advancing. Last year, researchers injected into living cockroaches DNA nanobots that were able to follow specific instructions, including dispensing drugs, and this year, nanobots were injected into the stomach lining of mice.
And we are learning how to enhance our brains, albeit not with nanobots. Researchers have already successfully sent a message from one human brain to another, by stimulating the brains from the outside using electromagnetic induction. In another study, similar brain stimulation made people learn math faster. And in a recent U.S. government study, a few dozen people who were given brain implants that delivered targeted shocks to their brain scored better on memory tests.
We’re already implanting thousands of humans with brain chips, such as Parkinson’s patients who have a brain chip that enables better motor control and deaf people who have a cochlear implant, which enables hearing. But when it comes to enhancing brains without disabilities and for nonmedical purposes, ethical and safety concerns arise. And according to a survey last year, 72 percent of Americans are not interested in a brain implant that could improve memory or mental capacity.
Yet, some believe enhancement of healthy brains is inevitable, including Christof Koch, chief scientific officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and Gary Marcus, professor of psychology at New York University. They use the analogy of breast implants -- breast surgery was developed for post-mastectomy reconstruction and correcting congenital defects but has since become popular for breast augmentation. Brain implants could follow the same path, they say.
Here are Kurzweil’s answers to a couple of the questions he took at the Singularity University discussion:
You have predicted that in 2029, we will reach the singularity -- the point at which artificial intelligence outpaces human intelligence.Your opening remarks suggest that you’re fundamentally positive about AI in the post-2029 world. Other speakers have been a little more ambivalent, certainly regarding the future of employment. Would you elaborate on your overall sentiment on the post-2029 world?
I’ve actually written about the dangers of AI more than most. But I’m also optimistic, having looked at the positive impact that technology has had on human life.
When it comes to the existential threat of AI, the primary strategy comes from governance and social systems. We will have conflict between different groups of humans, each enhanced by AI. We have that today with humans using intelligent weapons. The best tool we have to combat that is to continue to work on our democracy, liberty and respect for each other.
When it comes to potential unemployment caused by AI, it’s always been the case that we can clearly see the jobs that are going away. This started 200 years ago in the textile industry in England. The weavers, who had enjoyed a business model passed down for centuries, were suddenly losing their jobs to machines that could spin thread or weave cloth. You could look at almost every job, and it would not be long before it’d be automated. The reality is that employment went up, and prosperity went up. The common man or woman, rather than just having one shirt, could now have a whole wardrobe. Life became better, and there were actually more jobs.
If I were a futurist in 1900 and said, “OK, about [40 percent] of you work on farms and a thirdwork in factories. I predict, by the year [2012], only about two percent of us will work on farms and [nine percent] in factories,” everyone would go, “Oh my God, we’re going to be out of work!” I’d say, “Don't worry. You’re going to get new jobs creating apps, web sites, chip designs and data analysis” -- nobody would have any idea what I’m talking about.
We’re destroying jobs at the bottom of the skill ladder and creating new jobs at the top. We’ve invested more in education in the U.S. over the last century. We’ve increased per capita investment in K-12 education significantly. We had 50,000 college students in 1870; we have [20 million] today.
It’s a difficult political situation because people can see the jobs that are going away, and that's painful. You say, “Well but there will be new jobs,” and people say, “What new jobs?” And you say, “Well, I don't know; they haven’t been invented yet.” It’s kind of a weak argument. But it’s true.
We’re also creating jobs that move up Maslow’s hierarchy so we can spend more time doing things that give us gratification. People a century ago for the most part were happy if they could have a job and provide for their family. Today, to an increasing degree, people get gratification from what they’re doing. They look for a career that meets their passion -- lots of people are pursuing entrepreneurial ideas. We have 20 million college students and an equal amount of people who teach them and support that infrastructure, all to think about knowledge and organize knowledge. That’s not something people spent much time doing a century or two ago -- we’re going to keep moving in that direction.
"In the 2030s, we will be able to send nanobots into living people’s brains and extract memories of people who have passed away."
Most things are becoming information technology, including clothing, which will be printed on 3-D printers. We’ll be able to grow food in vertical agriculture and print it on 3-D printers, which are pennies for pounds. In the 2020s, 3-D printing designs will be open source and free so you can live extremely well and print out everything you need, including printing out houses.
People say, “Great, there goes all these industries, like fashion and construction.” But look at industries that have already gone from physical products to digital products, like music, movies and books. There’s an open source market with millions of free products but people still spend money to read Harry Potter, see the latest blockbuster and buy music from their favorite artist. Fueled by the ease of distribution and promotion, you have a coexistence of a free open-source market and a proprietary market. That's the direction we’re moving in.
I can’t actually describe exactly what the new jobs will be but they will be more gratifying. We are already redefining the nature of work. I don't feel like I’m working when I go to Google because I’m doing what I’m passionate about. A lot of people today don't like their jobs. So why are people so upset if these jobs go away? We’ve created a society where you need a job to have a livelihood. But that’s going to be redefined. We’re going to have the means of providing an extremely high standard of living to everyone easily within 15 to 20 years.
In the documentary about yourself, you are preparing yourself to transcend your death. How do you explain your theory of immortality?
In the film “Transcendent Man,” I talk about bringing back my father, Frederick Kurzweil. I’m writing a book now called The Singularity Is Nearer, and I’m talking about this concept of a replicant, where we bring back someone who has passed away. It’ll go through several different stages. First, we’ll create an avatar based on emails, text messages, letters, video, audio and memories of the person. Let’s say in 2025, it’ll be somewhat realistic but not really the same. But some people do actually have an interest in bringing back an unrealistic replicant of someone they loved.
By the 2030s, the AIs will be able to create avatars that will seem very close to a human who actually lived. We can take into consideration their DNA. In the 2030s, we will be able to send nanobots into living people’s brains and extract memories of people who have passed away. Then you can really make them very realistic.
I have collected and keep many boxes of information about my father. I have his letters, music, 8mm movies and my fading memories of him. It will be possible to create a very realistic avatar in a virtual environment or augmented reality. When you actually interact with an avatar physically, it will ultimately pass a Frederick Kurzweil Turing test -- meaning he’ll be indistinguishable from our memories of the actual Frederick Kurzweil. _______________________________________________________________
Google Exec: With Brain Chips, We'll Become Like Gods
NEW YORK — What do Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, Jan Crouch, Dr. David Jeremiah and Robert Jeffress all have in common? A video has surfaced online showing the men and women, along with others, laying hands on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump this week and praying for his potential presidency.
According to reports, an estimated three dozen spiritual leaders from across America met with Trump for over two hours at his Trump Towers on Monday, providing advice. Those in attendance included a number of nationally-recognized televangelists and prosperity preachers, including the aforementioned Copeland, Crouch and White, as well as TBN regulars Jentezen Franklin, Steve Munsey and Clarence McClendon.
The meeting concluded as many of those gathered laid hands on Trump and prayed for God’s wisdom and favor on the candidate—the last few moments of which was captured on camera. He was flanked by White on one side and Jeffress on the other.
“Father, we just secure him right now by the blood of Jesus. We thank you that no weapon formed against him will be able to prosper and any tongue that rises against him will be condemned according to the word of God,” White, who leads New Destiny Christian Center in Florida, prayed as she touched his arm. “Even as we lay hands on him right now, let Your hand be laid upon him. Let him have a greater encounter with You, a greater encounter with the spirit of God.”
“All the days of his life, let him live well,” she continued. “I secure him. I secure his children. I secure his calling and his mantle.”
Kenneth Copeland, who leads Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Texas and has come under criticism for his health and wealth teaching, asked for wisdom for the candidate.
“[W]e ask you today to give this man your wisdom, boldly. Make sure and certain that he hears You. Manifest Yourself to him,” he prayed. “And we thank You and praise You for a bold man, a strong man and an obedient man.”
Following Copeland, Kirt Schneider of Jews for Jesus laid his hand on Trump’s forehead and prayed the Abrahamic blessing over the Republican presidential candidate.
“Donald Trump, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with His countenance and give you His peace,” he declared.
David Jeremiah, pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California also participated in the prayers, asking that the next president “will help us economically and spiritually, and in every way.”
“So today we pray for Donald Trump,” he said, as the others in the room joined in agreement. “We pray for his family. We pray for his associates. We pray that what he has heard today from those who have spoken into his life, he will consider.”
“Lord, whatever it is that You are going to do to bring around him the right people as he moves forward in this campaign, we ask you to give him direction and give him hope,” Jeremiah continued. “And Lord, thank you for allowing us to be here for this special moment. Perhaps we’ll look back on this day and remember that we stood together and we prayed for the next president of the United States.”
But not everyone is happy to hear about the meeting. Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said that he was concerned that out of all of Christianity, billionaire Trump seems to be attracted to prosperity preachers.
“The people that Trump has so far identified as his evangelical outreach are mostly prosperity gospel types, which are considered by mainstream evangelicals to be heretics,” he told Politico.
“Trump seems to be positioning himself as a secular version of the health-and-wealth televangelists,” Moore continued. “What Donald Trump is doing in terms of promises for the future is very similar to what’s going on among these prosperity gospel hawkers.”
PAULA WHITE LOOKING FOR A RICH HUSBAND AGAIN?
TRUMP & WHITE BOTH MARRIED THREE TIMES (TO OTHERS)
HOLD BIBLE, LAY HANDS ON, & PRAY THAT ALL THOSE $BILLIONS COME BACK TO AMERICA; AND, OH YES, CALL IN THE PRESS TO RECORD FOR THE CAMPAIGN & POSTERITY!
Introducing her guests, she said, "If you want to change the way you live, change your thinking. I want them to bring their wisdom to you today, give people tools to really transform their lives." And then the camera panned over to two men, co-authors of the book,"Why We Want You to be Rich": Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump.
Yes – the Donald. Donald Trump -- to give you the wisdom of the world to transform your life! I mean, who wouldn’t want a life like his? On his fourth marriage – all to beautiful (at least by outer appearance) women who mothered his children. The Donald – living in the lap of luxury, flying around in his own private jet, hosting his own reality program, The Apprentice, and here on this "Christian" program to share his worldly wisdom with all of us: how to become rich – how to become a billionaire.
"The only limitations are the ones we put on ourselves," Paula bubbled. "If we change our way of thinking, change our way of life – the bible all about empowerment."
She was speaking Trump’s language. He told of athletes who make bad financial deals for a lack of knowledge and end up bankrupt, while making their managers rich. Trump lamented, "If they knew what you preach, Paula, they would never be in the condition they’re in today."
SECOND VISIT: HERE'S THE VIDEO FROM 2008:
"PASSION IS THE WORD"
Trump Hosts Televangelists Who Fleece Their Flocks
EXCERPTS:Trump palling around the televangelist world of get-rich-quick promises, multiple marriages, and questionable coiffures is, well, perfect. His decision to host these leaders at Trump Tower in Manhattan suggests he may see faith the way he sees other endeavors: as a way to lure big audiences with glitzy promises that are less than reality-based. Much like his outreach to the more mainstream evangelical community, he’s been connected with the televangelist set for quite a while. Trump and White have been friends for years, which makes sense because they have a lot in common. In addition to having their own popular TV shows, they’re on their third marriage—Trump’s to former model Melania Trump, and White’s to the keyboardist for Journey. Trump has been a guest on her programming numerous times, and they seem to be big fans of each other. He’s called her “a beautiful person, both inside and out,” and recommended that viewers read her book You’re All That: Understanding God’s Design For Your Life so they would “be ready for great success.” White has compared him to “a diamond that reveals a new facet each time it is turned in the light,” according to The Tampa Tribune. ______________________________________________
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
PHILADELPHIA — During his final remarks at the Festival of Families in Philadelphia, the Roman Catholic pontiff Jorge Bergoglio, known as “Pope Francis,” led the thousands in attendance in a prayer to Mary and Joseph out of his belief that the former earthly parents of Christ serve as protectors of families in the present.
“Before the final blessing, let’s pray a prayer to Mary and also an invocation to Saint Joseph, so that they can protect our families and they can help us to believe that it’s worth the struggle and the fight for the good of the family,” he said at the conclusion of the event, which included song and dance from various musical celebrities, as well as speeches from Catholic families from around the world.
Francis then led the crowd in the “Hail Mary,” who recited the common prayer with him.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, our Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus,” he prayed. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
The Roman Catholic leader immediately followed the prayer with an invocation to Joseph.
“Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us,” he repeated three times. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
The event also featured a reading by Gianna Emanuela Molla, the daughter of Gianna Beretta Molla, who was canonized as a saint following her death in 2004 and was proclaimed to be the “patron saint” of the World Meeting of Families. According to reports, “women pray to St. Gianna to intercede in difficult pregnancies or with fertility issues, or to solve family crises.”
But Mike Gendron of Proclaiming the Gospel Ministries in Plano, Texas, a former Roman Catholic who now leads an evangelistic ministry to reach Catholics, told Christian News Network that the practice of praying to any deceased person is unbiblical.
“The pope would do well to study the truth of God’s word so that he will stop deceiving people. For him to ask people to pray to Mary and Joseph, who are physically dead, is an abomination to the Lord,” he said, pointing to Deuteronomy 18:11-12, which forbids communicating with the dead.
Gendron outlined that it is furthermore not necessary to ask any deceased person to pray for them when the Scriptures outline that men must pray to the Father in the name of Jesus.
“Nowhere in Scripture do we see any God-fearing man praying to anyone other than God,” he explained. “The Lord Jesus taught us how to pray in Mat. 6:6-7. He said, ‘[P]ray to your Father … and when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.”
“Paul also made it clear how to pray when he wrote to the Church. He said, “[B]y prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God,” Gendron continued, pointing to Philippians 4:6.
He said that he hopes the pontiff will place truth over tradition.
“Francis would do well to heed the warning of Peter, whom he thinks was the first pope. Peter said, the Lord is against those who do evil—which would include consulting the dead—but His ears are open to the prayers of the righteous,” Gendron stated. _____________________________________________________________
DR. GIANNA EMANUELA, DAUGHTER OF "SAINT" ABOVE: PRAYING TO SAINT GIANNA IN VAIN
A gunman singled out Christians for slaughter during a rampage at an Oregon college Thursday, leaving at least nine innocent people dead and several more wounded, survivors and authorities said.
“The shooter was lining people up and asking if they were Christian,” tweeted“@bodhilooney,” who said her grandmother was inside the Umpqua Community College classroom that was the scene of the carnage.
If they said yes, then they were shot in the head. If they said no, or didn’t answer, they were shot in the legs.”
Gunman Chris Harper-Mercer’s disdain for religion was evident in online profile, as the madman became a member of a “doesn’t like organized religion” group on an Internet dating site.
During the rampage, student Kortney Moore, 18, said she was attending Writing 115 class at the Roseburg college’s Snyder Hall when a bullet pierced a window, the southwestern Oregon city’s News-Review newspaper reported.
She saw her teacher get shot in the head and said the gunman asked people to state their religion before he opened fire.
Harper-Mercer, 26, was killed in a shootout with police outside one of the classrooms, said Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin.
“There was an exchange of gunfire,” he said. “The shooter threat was neutralized.
Although police put the death toll at 10 — including Harper-Mercer — with seven people injured, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum had said 13 people died.
In other developments:
The killer was carrying four guns — including three pistols and a rifle — during the attack, a source told CNN.
An anonymous user wrote in an ominous post on the online bulletin board 4chan Wednesday night: “Some of you guys are alright. Don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest. happening thread will be posted tomorrow morning. so long space robots,” the post concluded.
Online profiles linked to Harper-Mercer showed that the deranged man had a fascination with terror tactics of the Irish Republican Party and bought Nazi memorabilia. He also wrote a blog post that mentioned Virginia shooter Vester Lee Flanagan, according to CBS news.
“Seems like the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight,” he wrote. A former president of the college said that the school has only one unarmed security officer and that the community decided against armed guards last year.
“I suspect this is going to start a discussion across the country about how community colleges prepare themselves for events like this,” Joe Olson told CBS News.
President Obama issued a plea for greater gun control and bemoaned that America is “the only advanced country on Earth who sees these kind of mass shooting every few months.”
“Each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough,” he said Thursday evening. “It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache, the grief and anger we should feel, and it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted in America.”
This attacks brings the total number of mass shootings in the country to 294 this year, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker. The web site defines mass shootings as incidents in which four or more people are killed or injured by gunfire. Witnesses described a chaotic scene inside Snyder Hall.
People were scrambling “like ants” when the gunman opened fire at around 10:38 a.m., according to Brady Winder, a 23-year-old student from Portland.
“People [were] screaming, ‘Get out!’ ” he told The News-Review, adding he saw a girl frantically swimming across a creek to escape.
Student Hannah Miles was also sitting in a classroom next door when she heard a pop that sounded like a yardstick slapping on a chalkboard.
Everyone in her classroom fled as more gunfire erupted.
Student Brandy Winter posted on Facebook, “I ran to the edge of the campus, down a hill and waited. From talking with a student in the classroom where it happened, almost every person in the room was shot by a man with four guns.’’
Another student, Luke Rogers, said he saw blood in a classroom as he was evacuated from the building.
“As we passed by the classroom, on the ground there were drops of blood,” the first-year Umpqua student told CNN. “We didn’t see any bodies. We saw books on the ground.”
One witness told The New York Times that she heard gunshots coming from outside her classroom.
She said a middle-aged woman then tried to close the door and prevent the shooter from getting inside, but she was shot by several rounds in the stomach.
The gunman “was just out there, hanging outside the door,” Cassandra Welding told the Times “and she slumped over and I knew something wasn’t right. And they’re like, ‘She got shot, she got shot.’ And everyone is panicking.”
Douglas County Fire Marshal Ray Shoulfer said victims were found in “multiple classrooms,” according to CNN.
In a national address, Obama lamented that mass shootings have become routine in America.
“I hope and pray that I don’t have to come out again during my tenure as president to offer my condolences to families in these circumstances,” he said. “But based on my experience as president, I can’t guarantee that, and that’s terrible to say, and it can change.”
Less than six hours after the mass shooting today in Roseburg, Ore., President Obama called a press conference to demand new gun laws, a move he predicted would spur critics to accuse him of politicizing the issue.
If they don’t accuse him of that, they might accuse him of making the tragedy about himself.
During today’s 12-minute address, President Obama referred to himself 28 times. (For those counting at home, that’s almost three times per minute.)
Note that in arriving at this calculation, we included mentions of “we” when he was clearly including himself as part of the plural pronoun; the many uses of “we” in referring to America at large were not included.
Obama Ignores Shootings In Heavy Gun Restricted Chicago
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Using deeply misleading rhetoric, Obama wasted no time in exploiting the tragic Oregon terrorist attack on Christian students, disarmed in yet another infamous “gun-free zone,” to push for even more unconstitutional restrictions on the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms. In a speech that was regurgitated by establishment media outlets across America, Obama claimed that the United States was “the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.” In the real world, if population size is taken into account, America is not even close to the top when considering the number of fatalities in mass shootings per capita — with multiple nations having ultra-strict gun control ranking far higher than the United States. Indeed, even among the three-dozen advanced OECD countries, America does not even rank in the top five, official data show.
As has become typical, though, Obama did not even wait for the blood of the massacred victims to dry before shamelessly politicizing and exploiting the tragedy. In a 12-minute speech delivered less than six hours after the slaughter, Obama, mentioning himself more than two dozen times, said the American people's thoughts and prayers “are not enough.” “It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel,” he said. “And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America — next week, or a couple of months from now.” Meanwhile, Second Amendment activists have been making a far-more sensible argument, lambasting “gun-free zones” as magnets for mass-murderers that politicians cling to despite the well-documented deadly effects of disarming potential victims.
“We don't yet know why this individual did what he did,” Obama said, though he would have known that the murderer was motivated by anti-Christian hatred if he had waited for the facts before pitching more attacks on the rights of Americans. “And it's fair to say that anybody who does this has a sickness in their minds, regardless of what they think their motivations may be. But we are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses or want to do harm to other people. We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.” Perhaps still reeling from being called out about his last false statement on the subject, Obama appears to have added an additional caveat ("every few months"), but the claim was still extremely misleading.
After a National Socialist murdered nine Christians at a church in South Carolina, Obama used even bolder falsehoods to push his narrative. “But let’s be clear: At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries,” he claimed, falsely, at the time. Of course, that was not just false — it was blatantly false. The statement came just months after mass-shootings in Paris massacred some 20 people with illegal AK-47s purchased easily on the black market. All of the victims were disarmed and defenseless thanks to strict French gun control. It also followed a massacre in Norway, another “advanced” nation with ultra-draconian infringements on the right to keep and bear arms, that left more than 70 children dead.
In fact, a brief look at the official data reveals that Obama's careful use of language was deliberately calculated to deceive gullible citizens. According to the Rampage Shooting Index, which used OECD data from 2009 to 2013, the United States was not even in the top five when it comes to rampage shooting fatalities per capita, or in fatal rampage shootings per capita. All five of the top nations' gun laws were classified as “restrictive,” while the United States was classified as permissive. In first place, by a huge margin, was Norway, which places extreme restrictions on firearms, at 15.3 fatalities per million citizens and 0.2 fatal shooting rampages per million citizens. By contrast, the United States, which was in sixth place out of three dozen nations, featured 0.72 fatalities per million citizens and 0.12 fatal shooting rampages per million citizens.
In second place on the index was Finland, followed by Slovakia, and then Israel — all three of which impose ultra-strict gun control. Indeed, if Europe is taken as a whole, and if non-firearms related mass-killings are taken into account, Americans are far safer from mass-murderers than Europeans. One key difference, though, is that Americans can generally defend themselves with guns if needed, while Europeans have largely been disarmed and left defenseless by their rulers. And if mass shootings in the United States committed in so-called gun-free zones were excluded from the total, America would have virtually none, making it among the safest places in the world. Even the United Kingdom, which bans gun ownership and was touted in Obama's latest speech, has mass-shootings, with one a few years ago claiming a dozen lives.
When compared with other nations that essentially ban private ownership of firearms, America is in fact an oasis of safety. Consider Honduras, for example, which has around 90 intentional homicides per 100,000 people annually, along with some of the strictest gun control on the planet. In Venezuela, where the United Nations helped the socialist regime disarm law-abiding citizens, there are more than 50 murders per 100,000 people. The United States, by contrast, has less than five per 100,000. Even Mexico, relatively advanced despite a near-total gun ban, has a murder rate that is around 500 percent higher than that of America. Similar trends can be observed around the world, and within the United States itself. Notably absent from Obama's anti-Second Amendment ramblings, for instance, was any mention of the fact that murder rates in the United States have been plunging like a rock as guns in public continue to proliferate — with the most pro-gun states leading the way.
Obama, though, who famously ridiculed and demonized Christians for bitterly clinging to their guns and religion, appears to be uninterested in facts. Indeed, despite having to brazenly twist the truth to launch attacks on the constitutionally protected rights he swore to uphold, Obama vowed to keep hammering away until Americans agree to surrender their liberties. “And each time this happens I'm going to bring this up,” he pledged after proudly boasting that he was politicizing a tragedy. “Each time this happens I am going to say that we can actually do something about it, but we're going to have to change our laws.” It was not immediately clear how Obama thought changing laws would prevent somebody willing to violate laws against murder from violating gun-control schemes.
But he vowed to keep politicizing tragedies until Americans submit to his agenda anyway. “And, of course, what’s also routine is that somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue,” he said in the speech. “Well, this is something we should politicize.” He also asked Americans to lobby in favor of more infringements on their own individual rights, calling for a “change of politics on this issue.” Congress, governors, and state legislatures should all jump on-board his anti-gun rights bandwagon, too, Obama insisted. In a stunning display of audacity, Obama even called on God to give Americans the “strength” and “courage” to accept “change” — specifically, more unconstitutional violations of their God-given rights.
Responding to Obama's shameless exploitation of massacred Christians to push assaults on gun rights, though, the non-profit Gun Owners of America instead demanded an end to existing infringements on the right to keep and bear arms that demonstrably contribute to mass shootings. “This is a very tragic day, and all Americans are mourning with the residents of Oregon,” said GOA Director of Communications Erich Pratt in a statement. “But we find it offensive to hear the White House use a tragedy like this, and instantly turn it into a political opportunity. The President spoke to the nation today, saying it’s proper for him to politicize this tragedy. He called for more ‘common sense’ gun control, which is insane, given that the criminally-minded don't obey the law.”
Pointing to Obama's listing of previous massacres in his latest speech — all of which occurred in “gun-free zones,” or victim-disarmament zones, as critics call them — Pratt said enough was enough. “Mr. President, you just identified the problem,” he explained. “Every public mass shooting since 1950, except for two, has occurred in a Gun Free Zone. This shooting is no different. And that is why GOA agrees with the 86% of police who say that these types of incidents would be prevented if the potential victims were not disarmed.” Pratt said that, apparently, policymakers have not learned the lesson from a 2012 mass shooting in Oregon during which a gun owner put a stop to the rampage by violating a no-gun policy. “Let's repeal Gun Free Zones,” Pratt concluded.
Ironically, perhaps, Obama's constant exploitation of tragedy and his predictable attacks on the Second Amendment appear to be having the opposite effect in the public consciousness. Consider a recent Rasmussen poll revealing that just one third of Americans even support any federal gun-control to begin with, a drastic decline from late last year. Support for gun rights, the number of guns, and opposition to gun control are soaring all across America and across all demographics. As more and more victims are massacred in areas where those victims have been forcibly left defenseless by politicians, whether it be in Europe or in domestic “gun-free zones,” those trends are likely to accelerate — regardless of Obama's deceptive deception on the issue.
“Oregon Shooting: Umpqua Community College Gunman Talked Religion,” NBC News claims in the headline for a story about Thursday's shooting in Roseburg, Oregon. Of course the headline is misleading, to say the least. The gunman, 26-year-old Chris Harper-Mercer, didn’t bring a Bible to Umpqua Community College; he brought three handguns and a semi-automatic rifle. He didn’t talk about his religious beliefs; he asked who was Christian and shot in the head those who said they were while shooting others in the legs. Yet, if the only thing we knew about the tragic event was the NBC News headline, we could be forgiven for concluding that the gunman was a religous zealot as opposed to an anti-Christian hater.
As reported by numerous survivors of the murderous rampage, Harper-Mercer sought out Christians in order to murder them. Bodhi Looney, the grandson of a woman who escaped injury in the mayhem but who witnessed the shooter barking orders to his unarmed victims, relayed what she saw on his Twitter account:
The shooter was lining up people and asking if they were Christian. If they said yes, then there were shot in the head. If they said no, or didn’t answer, they were shot in the legs.
Stacy Boylan, the father of a student who was wounded in the attack, told reporters what she saw:
He shot the professor, point blank, one shot, killed him — took him right out of it.
And then, this man … start[ed] asking people, one by one, what their religion was. “Are you a Christian?” he would ask them. And “If you’re a Christian, stand up!”
And they would stand up, and he said: “Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second.”
And then he shot and killed them.
On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold sought out, attacked and murdered Christians at Columbine High School, near Denver, Colorado. Cassie Bernall was reading in the library when one of the murderers pointed his gun at her and asked if she believed in God. She replied, “Yes, I believe in God.” The shooter asked her “Why?” and then, before she could answer, he shot her dead.
Rachel Scott, a Columbine student whose ambition was to become a missionary to Africa, along with student John Tomlin who had just returned from a missionary trip to Mexico on a church project, were also targeted by the shooters for their faith, and were murdered.
On the Sunday before she was murdered, Bernall wrote these words in her diary:
Now I have given up on everything else. I have found it to be the only way to really know Christ and to experience the mighty power that brought Him back to life again and to find out what it means to suffer and to die with Him.
So, whatever it takes, I will be one who lives in the fresh newness of life of those who are alive from the dead.
in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Preliminary information is that on the morning of Thursday, October 1, a shooter at Roseburg, Oregon's Umpqua Community College murdered at least 10 people, and more than 20 others were wounded, several seriously. The shooter reportedly died in a shootout with police.
It’s known that the school is a “gun free zone,” with this posted on the college’s website:
Possession, use, or threatened use of firearms (including but not limited to BB guns, air guns, water pistols, and paint guns) ammunition, explosives, dangerous chemicals, or any other objects as weapons on college property, except as expressly authorized by law or college regulations, is prohibited.
Possession of knives with a blade longer than 4” is prohibited.
Brandishing weapons is prohibited.
Misuse of personal defensive weapons — e.g., pepper spray, etc. is prohibited. The owner is responsible and accountable for any misuse of these devices.
It should be noted that, in addition to declaring itself a “gun-free zone” — turning the 3,300-student campus into what nationally respected Second Amendment author and firearms trainer Massad Ayooba called a “hunting preserve for psychopaths” — the school had but a single security officer patrolling the campus, and he was unarmed.
Yet, despite the fact that a shooter again hit a location that advertises the lack of the ability of people there to defend themselves, anti-gunners soon began using the massacre as a platform to blame guns, instead of the shooter. Jenna Yuille, whose mother was killed in the Clackamas Town Center shooting in Portland, Oregon, in December 2012, is such a gun control advocate and a fellow at the Everytown Survivor Network. She released the following statement after the shooting at Umpqua Community College:
Once again here in Oregon, our community has been torn apart by a tragic and senseless act of gun violence. My thoughts are with the students, faculty and families of those killed and injured at Umpqua Community College today. What they are going through and feeling right now is all too familiar to me. While we still have much to learn about the details surrounding this horrific act, it is clear we cannot, as a nation, sit idly by without taking meaningful action to end gun violence in America.
The New American will publish more about the tragedy as details emerge.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
When Eugene, Oregon’s Mayor Kitty Piercy announced that Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety would be spending tens of thousands of dollars on television ads to urge Oregonians to comply with the new background check law that became effective on August 9, she said, “Background checks are good for public safety. Closing this loophole makes it harder for criminals to get guns.”
Tell that to the families of victims at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg. The shooter, whose name appears elsewhere on the media, brought with him three handguns and a semi-automatic rifle to the college on Thursday morning and, unimpeded by victims who had been disarmed by college rules, took his time to shoot upwards of 20 students — at least 10 people are reported dead. Like sheep, the student/targets just held their breaths while the shooter calmly reloaded and continued his rampage. A few narrowly escaped during the melee, allowing observers to learn of the attack in its gory and horrific details.
The new law now requires background checks between private individuals in the state, not just from gun dealers or at gun shows. Those checks are intended to flag felons and individuals with a history of severe mental illness.
The shooter was among five students listed in the 2009 graduating class at Switzer Learning Center, a school that focuses on students with emotional disturbances, autism spectrum disorders, and behavioral problems. Evidence continues to surface showing that the shooter had anti-social and anti-organized religion tendencies and a distinctly dour outlook on the world.
Nevertheless, the shooter was able to obtain three handguns and a semi-automatic rifle to terrorize and kill those students. Where would any law have prevented him from obtaining those weapons?
As noted by NBC News, “It is not clear where or when the shooter in Thursday’s attack obtained his weapon or whether the new law would have had any impact. Gun control advocates said the new measure would prevent criminals and the mentally ill from buying guns.”
A Justice Department survey of more than 18,000 state and federal convicts is helpful in answering that question:
• 39.6 percent of criminals obtained a gun from a friend or family member
• 39.2 percent of criminals obtained a gun on the street or from an illegal source
• 0.7 percent of criminals purchased a gun at a gun show
• 1 percent of criminals purchased a gun at a flea market
• 3.8 percent of criminals purchased a gun from a pawn shop
• 8.3 percent of criminals actually bought their guns from retail outlets
In other words, almost four out of five firearms obtained by those convicts were obtained outside the reach of the new law, or any gun control law, for that matter.
For answers to neutralizing deranged shooters like the one who terrorized Umpqua Community College on Thursday, one must look elsewhere.
What You Won't Hear About the Oregon Shooting; Obama Ignores Chicago Shootings; Never Called For Religious Tolerance
Published on Oct 3, 2015
Before he spoke, officials confirmed that the shooter targeted his victims based on their religion, yet the president never called for religious tolerance.
