Saw this film Saturday night, and just LOVED it. There's been tons and tons of movies about superheroes the past twenty to thirty years now, but this is the FIRST movie about an entire family of superheroes, even with a baby! Though the Incredibles may some incredible super powers, even a family of superheroes cannot escape the emotional dynamics of regular old American family life in the post-war era.
This movie is, of course a sequel to the original "Incredibles" movie that came out fourteen years ago, and picks up EXACTLY where the last film left off. Being completely animated, there's no issue with the actors looking fourteen years older! All the famous voices are still with us, and the voices don't seem like they aged at all.
I chased my enemies and caught them;
I did not stop until they were conquered.
I struck them down so they could not get up;
they fell beneath my feet.
You have armed me with strength for the battle; you have subdued my enemies under my feet.
You placed my foot on their necks. I have destroyed all who hated me.
They called for help, but no one came to their rescue.
They even cried to the Lord, but he refused to answer.
I ground them as fine as dust in the wind.
I swept them into the gutter like dirt.
You gave me victory over my accusers.
You appointed me ruler over nations;
people I don’t even know now serve me.
As soon as they hear of me, they submit;
foreign nations cringe before me.
They all lose their courage
and come trembling from their strongholds.
The Lord lives! Praise to my Rock!
May the God of my salvation be exalted!
He is the God who pays back those who harm me; he subdues the nations under me and rescues me from my enemies. You hold me safe beyond the reach of my enemies; you save me from violent opponents.
For this, O Lord, I will praise you among the nations;
I will sing praises to your name.
You give great victories to your king; you show unfailing love to your anointed, to David and all his descendants forever.
Just got this book today, as a correction to my mistake of buying the wrong "Jane Hawk" novel to read first! This is the first book in the "Jane Hawk" series by Dean Koontz, the book that will setup all her subsequent adventures. So this is now high on my reading list.
About this book:
“I very much need to be dead.” These are the chilling words left behind by a man who had everything to live for—but took his own life. In the aftermath, his widow, Jane Hawk, does what all her grief, fear, and fury demand: find the truth, no matter what. People of talent and accomplishment, people admired and happy and sound of mind, have been committing suicide in surprising numbers. When Jane seeks to learn why, she becomes the most-wanted fugitive in America. Her powerful enemies are protecting a secret so important—so terrifying—that they will exterminate anyone in their way. But all their power and viciousness may not be enough to stop a woman as clever as they are cold-blooded, as relentless as they are ruthless—and who is driven by a righteous rage they can never comprehend. Because it is born of love.
For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Hickok45 demonstrates a fully automatic Thompson sub-machine gun, lovingly referred to a "The Tommy Gun". The gangsters of the 1920's made this machine gun famous, but these were also widely used by Allied soldiers during WWII. This video show just how powerful this little gun really is, and tells you a lot about it's history.
Abijah began to rule over Judah in the eighteenth year of Jeroboam’s reign in Israel. He reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother was Maacah, the daughter of Uriel from Gibeah.
Then war broke out between Abijah and Jeroboam. Judah, led by King Abijah, fielded 400,000 select warriors, while Jeroboam mustered 800,000 select troops from Israel.
When the army of Judah arrived in the hill country of Ephraim, Abijah stood on Mount Zemaraim and shouted to Jeroboam and all Israel: “Listen to me! Don’t you realize that the Lord, the God of Israel, made a lasting covenant with David, giving him and his descendants the throne of Israel forever? Yet Jeroboam son of Nebat, a mere servant of David’s son Solomon, rebelled against his master. Then a whole gang of scoundrels joined him, defying Solomon’s son Rehoboam when he was young and inexperienced and could not stand up to them.
“Do you really think you can stand against the kingdom of the Lord that is led by the descendants of David? You may have a vast army, and you have those gold calves that Jeroboam made as your gods. But you have chased away the priests of the Lord (the descendants of Aaron) and the Levites, and you have appointed your own priests, just like the pagan nations. You let anyone become a priest these days! Whoever comes to be dedicated with a young bull and seven rams can become a priest of these so-called gods of yours!
“But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not abandoned him. Only the descendants of Aaron serve the Lord as priests, and the Levites alone may help them in their work. They present burnt offerings and fragrant incense to the Lord every morning and evening. They place the Bread of the Presence on the holy table, and they light the gold lampstand every evening. We are following the instructions of the Lord our God, but you have abandoned him. So you see, God is with us. He is our leader. His priests blow their trumpets and lead us into battle against you. O people of Israel, do not fight against the Lord, the God of your ancestors, for you will not succeed!”
A new series that Dean Koontz started in 2017 about an FBI agent named Jane Hawk, who stumbled on a terrible conspiracy when her husband committed suicide. The only thing, he was a happy, normal person who had no reason or motive for committing suicide. As any good FBI agent would suspect, she thinks her husband was killed, and the suicide was just a cover. Now she finds a school teacher who committed suicide under very similar circumstances.
I meant to buy the FIRST book in this new series, but when I got it home, I found out it was the second book of the series! Oh well, an easy mistake to correct.
About the book:
“No time to delay. Do what you were born to do. Fame will be yours when you do this.” These are the words that ring in the mind of mild-mannered, beloved schoolteacher Cora Gundersun—just before she takes her own life, and many others’, in a shocking act of carnage. When the disturbing contents of her secret journal are discovered, it seems certain that she must have been insane. But Jane Hawk knows better. In the wake of her husband’s inexplicable suicide—and the equally mysterious deaths of scores of other exemplary individuals—Jane picks up the trail of a secret cabal of powerful players who think themselves above the law and beyond punishment. But the ruthless people bent on hijacking America’s future for their own monstrous ends never banked on a highly trained FBI agent willing to go rogue—and become the nation’s most wanted fugitive—in order to derail their insidious plans to gain absolute power with a terrifying technological breakthrough. Driven by love for her lost husband and by fear for the five-year-old son she has sent into hiding, Jane Hawk has become an unstoppable predator. Those she is hunting will have nowhere to run when her shadow falls across them.
Bought this book on Friday, it's book #2 of the "Odd Thomas" series. I listened to the first book on audio, and I'm currently re-reading it in paperback form. Dean Koontz is one very smart man, and is an incredible story teller.
As for what kind of novel these is, it's almost impossible to categorize. Odd Thomas is the actual name of the protagonist, his given first name was, in fact, "Odd." Odd is just a young guy working as a short order cook, but has one very interesting ability: he can see ghosts of the dead, including Elvis. Because of this ability, he can perceive crimes and murders, because some of the ghosts seek him out to bring them justice.
Supernatural crime fighters are nothing new, but a crime fighter who is nothing more than a short order cook with paranormal abilities is certainly not the way these things usually work.
About the book:
"I see dead people. But then, by God, I do something about it." Odd Thomas never asked for his special ability. He’s just an ordinary guy trying to live a quiet life in the small desert town of Pico Mundo. Yet he feels an obligation to do right by his otherworldly confidants, and that’s why he’s won hearts on both sides of the divide between life and death. But when a childhood friend disappears, Odd discovers something worse than a dead body and embarks on a heart-stopping battle of will and wits with an enemy of exceptional cunning. In the hours to come there can be no innocent bystanders, and every sacrifice can tip the balance between despair and hope.
You’re invited on an unforgettable journey through a world of terror and transcendence to wonders beyond imagining. And you can have no better guide than Odd Thomas.
It's so obvious a blind man can see it, but for those of you who are still having a hard time understanding what 99% of the "social justice" movements have been about these past fifty years, there's a very simple one word answer: envy.
“Envy is the religion of the mediocre. It comforts them, it soothes their worries, and finally it rots their souls, allowing them to justify their meanness and their greed until they believe these to be virtues. Such people are convinced that the doors of heaven will be opened only to poor wretches like themselves who go through life without leaving any trace but their threadbare attempts to belittle others and to exclude - and destroy if possible - those who, by the simple fact of their existence, show up their own poorness of spirit, mind, and guts. Blessed be the one at whom the fools bark, because his soul will never belong to them.” ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel's Game P-B
This seems like good, simple ENGLISH cucumber recipe from America's Test Kitchen:
Smashed cucumbers, or pai huang gua, is a Sichuan dish that is typically served with rich, spicy food. We started with English cucumbers, which are nearly seedless and have thin, crisp skins. Placing them in a zipper-lock bag and smashing them into large, irregular pieces sped up a salting step that helped expel excess water. The craggy pieces also did a better job of holding on to the dressing. Using black vinegar, an aged rice-based vinegar, added a mellow complexity to the soy and sesame dressing.
Honing a knife is a very simple process that is OFTEN misunderstood and misused. The nice people at Shun produced this video to show you how to do it effectively.
Amazing wisdom from this young woman. "Righteousness" itself really isn't a trap, it's self-righteousness and legalism that's the trap. Think the Pharisees who persecuted Jesus unto death, after Jesus called them out for their hypocrisy.
And that's the cruel thing about the pursuit of self-righteousness, it will ALWAYS leave you being a hypocrite, always. Just think of the so-called "social justice warriors" who are quick to condemn any activity they don't like, but refuse to take responsibility for any of their own contributions to injustice.
"In this video we explore the relationship between mythology and the unconscious, and look at the monomyth Joseph Campbell called the myth of the hero's journey." P-B
Basically, the core problem of humanity as seen by Carl Jung. He's mostly right. The worst thing that ever happened to humanity is the drain of people from the countryside to that of major urban areas. In the city, it's way too easy for people's various pathologies to feed on one another, the most classic case of this is the fabled story of "Sodom and Gomorra". The root of these pathologies is realization of our own insignificance and powerlessness.
From "First Things" -- The prophetic significance of Humanae Vitae:
Who were the prophets? In the Bible, the prophets were often confrontational. They dressed down to draw attention to themselves: Jeremiah buried his underwear, dug it up, and put it on again (Jer 13:1-11); John the Baptist let his hair grow, and Ezekiel shaved his head (Ezek 5:1); John wore camel skins, and Isaiah wandered around naked and barefoot for three years (Mt 3:4, Isa 20). Their eating habits also left something to be desired: Ezekiel ate books (Ezek 3:3) or bread cooked on a fire fueled by human waste (Ezek 4:12); Elijah was fed by ravens (1 Kings 17:1-5); Daniel eschewed all rich food (Dan 1); and John was into the paleo diet (Mt 3:4). Their activities were unpredictable: Jeremiah smashed pottery and pretended to be a dumb animal, wearing a cattle yoke (Jer 19, 27, 28); he remained celibate, whereas Hosea married a notorious prostitute (Jer 16, Hos 1:2); and Ezekiel lay on his side for more than a year, went into trances, and talked to mountains or dead bones (Ezek 3:24; 4:4-6; 6:2; 8:1-3; 35-37). The Biblical prophets were not afraid to be counter-cultural. They wandered about speaking for God and telling people off. “Woe,” “return,” and “repair” were their most common words. No wonder these men were unpopular. In due course, they were proven right and their wisdom heeded. But in the meantime, they were vilified for speaking inconvenient truths.
In Chicago, nearly a third of all property tax revenue is diverted into private TIF funds appropriated for the city’s 143 TIF districts. And despite the fact that TIFs are meant to encourage development in blighted neighborhoods, these districts aren’t limited to underserved areas. Nearly half of the $660 million Chicago collected in TIF revenue last year was captured by TIF districts located in affluent neighborhoods, including the Loop. The LaSalle Central TIF district, which is only 12 years old, brought in nearly $57 million in revenue in 2017, the highest among Chicago-area TIF districts. This leaves taxing bodies such as Chicago Public Schools scrambling for funding to make up for revenue diverted to TIF funds. In order to make up for revenue lost to TIF districts, local taxing bodies resort to raising their property tax levies. This only adds to Illinoisans’ already heavy property tax burden. Abuses of the TIF system are well documented, but lawmakers have done little to correct these issues. In fact, Chicago is currently considering a new TIF district encompassing industrial land in affluent Lincoln Park. This follows another recent TIF district established at the site of the former Lathrop Homes.
Knowing what’s going on can make it easier to reach people. But there’s a limit to this. Jesus could read the signs of the times, but his listeners couldn’t understand what he was talking about. Paul read them too, but people found his preaching “foolishness” and a “stumblingblock.” The problem wasn’t that Jesus and Paul needed to work out a new and improved form of evangelism, but that people insist on ignoring basic realities. When they do, focusing too much on their language and concerns means joining their mindlessness. Saint Benedict and Saint Francis went a different way. They didn’t think current concerns were going anywhere, and their response was to forget about them and do what they thought made most sense. When people saw what this was, they realized what they had been missing and followed them. This changed the world.
Pastor V. was happy to see many new members come into the church he served in Lawrence. He taught them the Small Catechism and received them. They took to the Body of Christ like ducks to water. But this bothered the Kansas district president. The church growth ideology to which he subscribed regarded traditional liturgy, doctrine, and preaching as barriers keeping “the lost” from joining the Church. If you want to reach the lost, you have to make the Church as much like the world as possible. Kids like pop music, so the service should include it. Sermons need to be practical, not doctrinal—teaching not Christ but morals, how to be good parents and successful workers, and, above all, how to persuade friends and neighbors to join the church and give generously. Pastor V. was urged to take a call to another church. He declined. The district opened another “mission start” with rock and roll worship (“CoWo,” “contemporary worship”) right down the street. That mission failed, while his congregation continued to attract more folks than the mission-minded congregations around him which hewed more closely to the officially favored “church growth” ideology. Finally, the members of the failed mission start, along with a retired pastor, joined Pastor V.’s congregation and urged more CoWo, small group ministries, and sermons that catered to individuals’ “felt needs.” Lutheran Pastor David Luecke’s book Evangelical Style and Lutheran Substance (which Neuhaus had panned for its shallow semi-paganism) served as their operations manual. Pastor V. moved on, and the congregation became another little copy of Willow Creek Community Church. It has declined over the years. =============================================================== There is an irony that Martin Luther pointed out in Bondage of the Will: The harder we try to reform ourselves, the worse we get. The more we harp on good works, the more evil works proliferate. Only when we give up trying to reform ourselves can Christ Jesus reform us by his cross, through gospel Word and sacrament, as his free gift through faith alone. Similarly, when we try to reform the Church to make it larger and more appealing to the masses, we separate ourselves from the Word of the Cross that truly reforms all, and we usually end up shrinking or sinking the Church. Since the late ’90s, the LCMS has declined for the first time in its history—and precipitously. We’ve lost almost 20 percent of our membership since 2000. In striving to reach the world, we’ve become worldly.
It really is quite simple. Everyone is smart except Donald J. Trump. That’s why they all are billionaires and all got elected President. Only Trump does not know what he is doing. Only Trump does not know how to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. Anderson Cooper knows how to stand up to Putin. The whole crowd at MSNBC does. All the journalists do. They could not stand up to Matt Lauer at NBC. They could not stand up to Charlie Rose at CBS. They could not stand up to Mark Halperin at NBC. Nor up to Leon Wieseltier at the New Republic, nor Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone, nor Michael Oreskes at NPR, at the New York Times, or at the Associated Press. But — oh, wow! — can they ever stand up to Putin! Only Trump is incapable of negotiating with the Russian tyrant. Remember the four years when Anderson Cooper was President of the United States? And before that — when the entire Washington Post editorial staff jointly were elected to be President? Remember? Neither do I.
One of the greatest drum solos of all time, captured on film. Joe Morello was an amazing talent, back in the days when every jazz band needed a star drummer.
Christ appearing to non-Christians is not unusual, but until the appearance of the Internet such stories and testimonies were not well known. What I love about Nadia is that she did NOT grow up as a Christian, but a Muslim, and doesn't have all the baggage that a Christian does in terms of the freshness of her relationship with Jesus.
Very interesting: the Freedom Caucus is after FBI Deputy Director Rod Rosenstein because he continuously REFUSES to provide documents that asked for by Congress. These documents all relate to the Trump investigation, in regards to what caused it. This should NOT be construed as them prying into the investigation, basically what they are after is the initial evidence that the FBI used to start the investigation. The Freedom Caucus has reason to believe that the investigation was a sham from the beginning, and if they can get the documents that initiated the investigation, it will prove their theory correct, and also show that the investigation was POLITICAL to begin with, and never truly about Russian collusion.
But Rosenstein has so far REFUSED to turn over the documents, even though he is legally required to do so. The theory as to why he refuses to comply has to do with the fact that these documents will not only show the investigation to have political origins, but that Rosenstein himself knew it all along, and quietly went along with it.
A group of House conservatives is preparing to file impeachment charges against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein over his lack of cooperation with their efforts to investigate political bias in the FBI.
House Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows had the impeachment document with him when he spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill and plans to file the charges as soon as Monday, Politico reported Friday afternoon.
Meadows, Freedom Caucus founder Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), and their conservative colleagues have attacked Rosenstein for months, accusing him of refusing to turn over documents purportedly related to allegations of bias within the FBI. Rosenstein, who began overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself, has vigorously defended himself in congressional hearings, assuring lawmakers that he has devoted extensive resources to processing their document requests.
Basically the Republicans have a two pronged attack going on here. First of all, they are going after FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Lawyer Lisa Page for their extreme political bias in regards to going after Donald Trump, a bias that is extremely well documented! Secondly, they are going after Rosenstein to provide the initial evidence for the Russia investigation, to show conclusively that the investigation was completely political from the get-go.
So far, the evidence is overwhelming that the Trump/Russia collusion investigation is, in fact, a total sham, and was conceived to help Hillary Clinton win the presidency. But the "smoking gun" has yet to be revealed...
We will probably know more about this before July is over.
Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page has been praised for her 'cooperative' performance at a closed door congressional hearing on Friday, as some Republicans say her testimony confirmed their suspicions of bias.
Page and her former lover, Peter Strzok, are facing the hearings after text messages sent between the pair revealed their hard anti-Trump stance.
The pair were working on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 Presidential election, and an investigation into Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's emails.
Page - whose affair with Strzok has led Trump to dub them the 'FBI lovers' - struck a deal with the House Judiciary Committee to testify privately after months of attempts to haul her before Congress, including defying a subpoena to testify publicly this week.
Then fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along, too. I went there because God revealed to me that I should go. While I was there I met privately with those considered to be leaders of the church and shared with them the message I had been preaching to the Gentiles. I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement, for fear that all my efforts had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing. And they supported me and did not even demand that my companion Titus be circumcised, though he was a Gentile.
Even that question came up only because of some so-called believers there—false ones, really—who were secretly brought in. They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish regulations. But we refused to give in to them for a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you.
And the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching. (By the way, their reputation as great leaders made no difference to me, for God has no favorites.) Instead, they saw that God had given me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews. For the same God who worked through Peter as the apostle to the Jews also worked through me as the apostle to the Gentiles.
In fact, James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles, while they continued their work with the Jews. Their only suggestion was that we keep on helping the poor, which I have always been eager to do.
Count One alleges a criminal conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States through cyber operations by the GRU that involved the staged release of stolen documents for the purpose of interfering with the 2016 president election;
Counts Two through Nine charge aggravated identity theft for using identification belonging to eight victims to further their computer fraud scheme;
Count Ten alleges a conspiracy to launder money in which the defendants laundered the equivalent of more than $95,000 by transferring the money that they used to purchase servers and to fund other costs related to their hacking activities through cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin; and
Count Eleven charges conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States by attempting to hack into the computers of state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and US companies that supplied software and other technology related to the administration of elections.
4. Here is an interesting bit of text on the very bottom of the press release about this indictment from the Department of Justice:
There is no allegation in the indictment that any American was a knowing participant in the alleged unlawful activity or knew they were communicating with Russian intelligence officers. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the vote count or changed the outcome of the 2016 election.
So what's going on here? Trump knew all about these Russian hackers sometime ago, and knew it would look bad, but that ultimately, there would be NO EVIDENCE of collusion. The fact that this announcement was timed for TODAY, Friday, July 13, 2018 is very interesting, as Trump will be meeting with Putin on July 16.
So while Trump backers might be moaning and wailing that this was timed to make Trump look bad, the truth is that he knew about this well in advance, and that this announcement was made TODAY, in advance of the meeting with Putin, to send Putin a message.
5. There is more to come from this story, and while it seemingly looks bad for Trump, there is more to this story than we know. It is interesting that in looking at the timeline for these hackers, most of their work was done between April and June of 2018. Obama ordered the "stand down" of the National Security Council in their efforts to counter Russian hacking in August of 2018, after these attacks became known.
So why order a "stand down" of cybersecurity aimed directly against Russian hacking when you know full well that Russian hackers are attacking your servers? Something doesn't make sense here. Logic dictates that efforts against hacking should become even more vigorous once you know an attack has occurred, not lessened...
One possible answer: perhaps the Obama administration was wanting these hackers to continue working unhindered for some odd reason. For instance, to serve as later "proof" of collusion with Donald Trump.
Interesting development in the Russia collusion investigation today:
Earlier today the Grand Jury for the District of Columbia charged twelve Russian intelligence officers with conspiring “to gain unauthorized access (to ‘hack’) into the computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, steal documents from those computers, and stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.” The operation was sustained and sophisticated, and it targeted “over 300 individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign, DCCC, and DNC,” according to the indictment.
Furthermore, the operation was consequential. When, in February, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office released its indictment of Russians involved in the effort to impact American debate through social media, there was some justified chuckling at the small scale and amateurishness of that effort. The messages were silly, and the spending was a drop in the ocean compared to the massive, sustained, and coordinated social-media spending of American political parties and their allies.
The hacking scandal was different. The hacking scandal mattered.
Excellent book review on the importance of Scholasticism from First Things:
Leinsle shows that many truisms that animate the standard narratives of Catholic theology are false. For example, he refutes the notion that Scholastic methods were introduced into theology as an alternative to scriptural reading and biblical commentary. On the contrary, from the sixth century onward, collections of theological sentences were gathered within glosses on Scripture precisely to help readers interpret the sacred text. Patristic citations were assembled by monastic communities in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in order to facilitate understanding of the discrete senses of Scripture (the literal sense, the typological, the moral, and the analogical). The first concordances of terms and Bible verses were created by twelfth-century Scholastics in order to compare terms and analyze the meaning of Scripture as a coherent whole.
More decisively, Leinsle shows that our presumption that Scholasticism encourages an insular and isolated mentality is exactly the opposite of the truth. The theology of the high Middle Ages was focused on a central question: In light of the discovery of Aristotelian philosophy, what is the scientific status of Christian theology? In other words, in what sense is Christian theology the queen of the sciences, the most complete view of the world available to human beings? How does it relate then to philosophical or scientific knowledge that derives from natural experience as such—in a respectful and critical way? These are not easy questions to contend with. But they are also unavoidable for an intellectually serious Christian culture.
Now some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” When Paul and Barnabas had a major argument and debate with them, the church appointed Paul and Barnabas and some others from among them to go up to meet with the apostles and elders in Jerusalem about this point of disagreement. So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they were relating at length the conversion of the Gentiles and bringing great joy to all the brothers. When they arrived in Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all the things God had done with them. But some from the religious party of the Pharisees who had believed stood up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise the Gentiles and to order them to observe the law of Moses.”
Both the apostles and the elders met together to deliberate about this matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that some time ago God chose me to preach to the Gentiles so they would hear the message of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, has testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between them and us, cleansing their hearts by faith. So now why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they are.”
The whole group kept quiet and listened to Barnabas and Paul while they explained all the miraculous signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. After they stopped speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has explained how God first concerned himself to select from among the Gentiles a people for his name. The words of the prophets agree with this, as it is written:
‘After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the fallen tent of David;
I will rebuild its ruins and restore it,
so that the rest of humanity may seek the Lord,
namely, all the Gentiles I have called to be my own,’ says the Lord, who makes these things known from long ago.
“Therefore I conclude that we should not cause extra difficulty for those among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we should write them a letter telling them to abstain from things defiled by idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood. For Moses has had those who proclaim him in every town from ancient times, because he is read aloud in the synagogues every Sabbath.”
Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to send men chosen from among them, Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, leaders among the brothers, to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.
They sent this letter with them:
"From the apostles and elders, your brothers, to the Gentile brothers and sisters in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia, greetings! Since we have heard that some have gone out from among us with no orders from us and have confused you, upsetting your minds by what they said, we have unanimously decided to choose men to send to you along with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas who will tell you these things themselves in person. For it seemed best to the Holy Spirit and to us not to place any greater burden on you than these necessary rules: that you abstain from meat that has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from doing these things, you will do well. Farewell."
So when they were dismissed, they went down to Antioch, and after gathering the entire group together, they delivered the letter. When they read it aloud, the people rejoiced at its encouragement. Both Judas and Silas, who were prophets themselves, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with a long speech. After they had spent some time there, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and proclaiming (along with many others) the word of the Lord.
The very first "canon law" from the apostles, small enough to be put on a 3 x 5 card with lots of room left over:
1. Abstain from meat that has been sacrificed to idols.
2. Abstain from eating or drinking blood.
3. Abstain from sexual immorality.
And that's it for a list of rules and regulations for the early Christians. No wonder so many want to get back to that level of simplicity.
3. FBI Inspector General Report: "A Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election" https://www.justice.gov/file/1071991/download
How Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were conspiring with federal judges in regards to the Russian collusion investigation:
Newly discovered text messages obtained by The Federalist reveal two key federal law enforcement officials conspired to meet with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) judge who presided over the federal case against Michael Flynn. The judge, Rudolph Contreras, was recused from handling the case just days after accepting the guilty plea of President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser who was charged with making false statements to federal investigators.
The text messages about Contreras between controversial Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) lawyer Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, the senior FBI counterintelligence official who was kicked off Robert Mueller’s special counsel team, were deliberately hidden from Congress, multiple congressional investigators told The Federalist. In the messages, Page and Strzok, who are rumored to have been engaged in an illicit romantic affair, discussed Strzok’s personal friendship with Contreras and how to leverage that relationship in ongoing counterintelligence matters.
Some interesting information about the Steele dossier, the famous document that started the entire Donald Trump / Russia collusion investigation:
Like dandelions in an untreated lawn, the now infamous Russian dossier apparently multiplied in numbers — and emissaries delivering it to the FBI — the closer Donald Trump got to the White House.
We know from public testimony that dossier author and former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele shared his findings with the FBI in summer and fall 2016 before he was terminated as a confidential source for inappropriate media contacts.
And we learned that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) provided a copy to the FBI after the November 2016 election — out of a sense of duty, his office says.
Now, memos the FBI is turning over to Congress show the bureau possessed at least three versions of the dossier and its mostly unverified allegations of collusion.
Each arrived from a different messenger: McCain, Mother Jones reporter David Corn, Fusion GPS founder (and Steele boss) Glenn Simpson.
That revelation is in an email that disgraced FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok wrote to FBI executives around the time BuzzFeed published a version of the dossier on Jan. 10, 2017.
“Our internal system is blocking the site,” Strzok wrote of the document posted on BuzzFeed. “I have the PDF via iPhone but it’s 25.6MB. Comparing now. The set is only identical to what McCain had. (it has differences from what was given to us by Corn and Simpson.)”
FBI agent Peter Strzok, for the first time ever in public, admits that the Steel dossier, which is the ONLY evidence that the FBI had to start the Russia collusion investigation, came from Bruce Ohr, in the Department of Justice.
Why is this significant? Because Bruce Ohr's wife worked for Fusion GPS. And we know, for a fact, that Fusion GPS came up with the Steele dossier as "campaign dirt" to be used against Donald Trump in the election. The payments from Clinton's campaign to Fusion GPS for this opposition research are a matter of public record.
Of course, digging dirt on a political opponent is not evidence of wrong doing by that opponent...it's just a political strategy to find ways to paint your opponent as a scumbag, using means that would almost never, ever pass muster in a court of law.
So we have the following chain of events:
1. The Clinton campaign pays off Fusion GPS to dig up "dirt" on Donald Trump, and they come up with a document now know as "the Steele dossier" which was named after the former British intelligence operative who provided the dirt.
2. Nellie Ohr, who works for Fusion GPS, passes the Steele dossier to her husband Bruce Ohr, who works in the Obama Department of Justice.
3. Bruce Ohr passes the Steele dossier to the FBI, and most likely directly to Peter Strzok, though he denies he received it personally. But he does admit that "the FBI" did receive it from Bruce Ohr.
4. Armed with nothing more than campaign dirt funded by the Clinton campaign, Peter Strzok opens up the now famous "Russia collusion" investigation into Donald Trump.
Does that seem a little fishy to you? How often does the FBI open up criminal investigations based on PAID campaign opposition research as it's ONLY source of evidence? Never, of course, but that is, in fact what happened. Those of you who know how the Democrats have controlled the city of Chicago for decades on end know full well how they operate, and, of course, both Hillary and Obama are Chicago Democrats with extremely close ties to the machine, especially Obama.
So what is really going on here? Let me give you the following scenario for your consideration, every single one of these points is extremely well documented, with many published articles or Congressional hearing testimony to back them up:
1. Hillary Clinton pays Fusion GPS to come up with a dossier on Donald Trump that links him to Putin's attempt to interfere with the American elections.
2. The dirt that is dug up is all done by a former British MI6 agent by the name of Christopher Steele.
3. Steele gets paid for his work, and hands his dossier to Fusion GPS and they provide it to both the Hillary Campaign, and the Obama Department of Justice.
4. The Department of Justice hands it off to FBI Agent Peter Strzok, who then uses the campaign dirt as "evidence" that Donald Trump is colluding with the Russian government to overthrow the election, and opens a secret investigation.
5. Because now Donald Trump is now labeled a threat to national security, the FULL WEIGHT OF ALL GOVERNMENT RESOURCES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC, are used to "investigate" the Trump campaign, including wire taps, spying, electronic surveillance, and other spy-craft. Of course, they are also going to hear a lot about campaign strategy too in all these intercepts, which of course is what they are really after. Think Watergate, but with the ENTIRE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT being used as the means to spy on the campaign. In other words, something that is one thousand times worse than Watergate.
6. But, because Donald Trump is a "threat" to national security, we not only use American government resources, but now also employ the resources of our allies to spy on the Trump campaign, especially those of Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Again, all this is well documented and in the public record.
7. The entire idea behind this secret Russia collusion investigation was never to prove that Donald Trump really did collude with the Russians, a charge so incredibly ridiculous it's hard to understand how any grown adult can believe in it, but rather this was just an effort to infiltrate his presidential campaign, find out his strategies and plans, and get that information to Clinton and Obama to be used to destroy the Trump candidacy.
8. Hillary Clinton, with tremendous help from the "Russian collusion" investigation then becomes president of the United States, and the "investigation" gets shut down, remaining a dirty little secret, and we never, ever hear about any of this.
But something funny happened on the way to Hillary becoming president: she lost, despite the deck being stacked in her favor, and in the anger and frustration of losing, she blows the lid on the secret "Russian collusion" investigation, making it now public. That was a very bad mistake on her part, as now we are finding out just how very dirty her campaign and the Obama administration really was. We are also finding that Peter Strzok, the lead FBI investigator, and the man who personally began the Russian collusion investigation, is an extremely loyal and even fanatical supporter of Hillary Clinton and Obama. The same is true of Peter Strzok's girlfriend, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who was in on the conspiracy from the very beginning. As a matter of fact, it was the personal communications between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that are now showing the Russia collusion investigation to be nothing more than "an insurance policy" to be used to make sure Trump never won the election.
We are only looking at the very tip of the iceberg here, the depth and the breadth of this corrupt use of government resources for partisan political purposes has yet to be fully revealed, but make no mistake about it, since Obama and Hillary made good use of our allies intelligence gathering ability as part of their "opposition research", we have what could easily become a case for high treason.
Now of course, this only my interpretation of events from all the public sourced documents, interviews I could find...none of this is "conspiracy theory" stuff, it's all quite real. The proof of this is how FIERCELY the Democrats are protecting the scumbag FBI Agent Peter Strzok, who is well hated by a majority of the regular "rank and file" FBI agents. All the Democrats in Congrees know full well what was happening here, and they are doing everything they can to prevent the truth from getting out. This might finally be the one thing that truly destroys the Democrat Party, something that should have taken place back in the 1860's, but never happened.
What's going on here is very interesting: Trey Gowdy is asking some very general questions about the Russia investigation, in terms of how it originated. But Peter Strzok refuses to answer the question, stating that the FBI will not allow him to answer, which is complete nonsense. Trey Gowdy is an EXTREMELY accomplished prosecutor, and is trying to find out the truth about the Russia collusion allegations, but Peter Strzok, with the tremendous help of the Democrats in the chamber, are doing EVERYTHING THEY CAN to prevent an answer to be given.
Here's a very important question to ask yourself: Why would would the Democrats not want ANY information about the origin of the Russia collusion investigation to be known?
The question of the number of people interviewed is not going to cause any problems to the investigation, unless, of course, the answer to that question is ZERO.
I guarantee that Trey Gowdy knows, for a fact, that the answer, is ZERO. Good prosecutors always know the exact answer to these questions before they ask them, and he's giving Strzok the opportunity to come clean. The TREMENDOUS amount of obstruction on display here is to make sure that the answer of "ZERO" is never heard.
The point being, that Peter Strzok, who is the ORIGINATOR of the Russia collusion investigation, never had any evidence, nor any basis in fact, for opening the investigation to begin with. A good prosecutor always has a series of interviews and a big pile of evidence handy before an official investigation is begun. Otherwise, the FBI (or any other police agency) could have official investigations into just about anything they wanted to, whether or not there's a hint of evidence for their meddling. Investigations without any basis of wrongdoing are known as "fishing expeditions".
I saw this performance on TV, and was SHOCKED at what I saw! The most surprising performance I've seen in years. I've since watched this clip perhaps 30 times since then....and the sense of shock and surprise never goes away. Watch it, you won't regret it.
Former Obama administration National Security Council cybersecurity coordinator Michael Daniel confirmed on Wednesday that a "stand down" order was given to counter Russian cyberattacks during the 2016 election.
During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Sen. James Risch (R., Idaho) asked Daniel about a passage in the book Russian Roluette. The passage was about a staffer from Daniel's team, Daniel Prieto, retelling the time that Obama's national security adviser Susan Rice told Daniel and his team to halt their efforts and to "stand down" in countering Russia's cyberattacks.
Daniel was quoted saying to his team that they had to stop working on options to counter the Russian attack: "We've been told to stand down." Prieto is quoted as being "incredulous and in disbelief" and asking, "Why the hell are we standing down?"
PLEASE DROP EVERYTHING YOU ARE DOING, AND WATCH THIS VIDEO AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. THE LIFE IT MIGHT SAVE, MAY BE YOUR OWN.
Dr Daniel Amen explains, with great clarity, why so much of today's psychology absolutely SUCKS when it comes to truly helping people, and the reason why it sucks: it is so simple as to be criminal.
SO PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE watch this video, and be amazed.
There are many testimonies of people from a wide variety of religions having seen Jesus, without having converted to Christianity. Here is one example. This is Part 2.
There are many testimonies of people from a wide variety of religions having seen Jesus, without having converted to Christianity. Here is one example.
Nancy Rynes - Awakening to Life: Reintegrating after a Near-Death Experience,
2016 IANDS Conference
"After eye-opening, spiritually-transformative Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), many NDErs struggle during their return to human life. I was no different until I realized that my NDE itself gave me all of the tools I needed not only to reintegrate to human society, but to turn my life into one I have always wanted to live. In this presentation, I discuss the wisdom I was given during my NDE including: our power of choice, how gratitude and compassion can transform our lives and the world, the amazing gifts that we have here in the physical plane. I then give examples of how I used this wisdom to transform my own life, and ways that many of my family and friends have made changes for the better as well. I also present exercises that others can use to transform their human life, one step at a time, whether or not they have had an NDE."
Visit her web site: http://nancyrynes.com/
Synthesizing science and spirit through Near-Death Experiences With Dr. Eben Alexander, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Mary Neal and Karen Newell March 17, 2017
1. HAS AN OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCE, WHERE SHE SEE'S HER DEAD BODY, WITH MEDICAL PERSONAL TRYING TO REVIVE "HER". BUT SHE HAS NO IDEA THAT SHE'S DEAD.
2. SHE MOVES TOWARD A BRIGHT LIGHT SOURCE, BUT NOT BY HER OWN CHOICE. SHE IS BEING TRANSPORTED TO IT. THOUGH THE LIGHT IS SUPER BRIGHT, IT DOES NOT CAUSE ANY PAIN OR HARM.
3. HAS EXPERIENCES THAT SIMPLY CANNOT BE DESCRIBED WITH OUR VERY LIMITED LANGUAGE.
4. SHE IS MET BY BEINGS SHE RECOGNIZES AS BEING PEOPLE, IN HER CASE, MONKS!
5. FEELINGS OF PERFECT PEACE, CALM AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.
6. "SPEAKING" IS DONE VIA TELEPATHY, NOT VOICE.
7. PERSON IS TOLD : "YOU CAN'T STAY, IT'S NOT YOUR TIME."
8. ARGUING WITH THE ORDER TO GO BACK, BECAUSE THE LIFE SHE CAME FROM WAS TOO PAINFUL.
9. THE REASON SHE WAS SENT BACK: TO TAKE CARE OF HER CHILD. (It's a surprisingly common reason why women are sent back to their bodies.)
10. FEELINGS OF REJECTION AND DEPRESSION BECAUSE SHE WAS SENT BACK AGAINST HER WILL.
11. FASTER THAN NORMAL HEALING AND RECOVERY AFTER THE EXPERIENCE.
This man has the most amazing NDE story: He died, and everyone else he was close to died on November 11. 11/11. He talks about something that most NDE people don't talk about: his ability to see into the spiritual realm after the NDE. Many people who have NDE's have paranormal powers given to them after the experience, but even if they talk about their NDE, they usually won't talk about their ability to see into the spiritual realm.
I was in California on a business trip, just yards from the beach, eating ice cream and laughing as the conversation drifted away from business. Eventually, somebody mentioned a friend-of-a-friend who had died by suicide.
The familiar ache and nausea filled my chest. My insides rattled when my coworker said he didn’t understand what would make someone feel like taking their life was the only option.
I swallowed hard and let out the breath I’d been holding. “I do.” For the first time in my life, I spoke up. “I completely get that. I’ve been there.”
My coworkers stared, jaws dangling in breathless shock. Finally, someone asked what it’s like to want to die. So I told them about the physical pain, the exhaustion, the heaviness. I told them it’s like dying of a terrible disease and wishing I could hurry it up, knowing things would only get worse.
Paul talks about the fate of the Jews: "God's people"...
11 Did God’s people stumble and fall beyond recovery? Of course not! They were disobedient, so God made salvation available to the Gentiles. But he wanted his own people to become jealous and claim it for themselves.
12 Now if the Gentiles were enriched because the people of Israel turned down God’s offer of salvation, think how much greater a blessing the world will share when they finally accept it.
13 I am saying all this especially for you Gentiles. God has appointed me as the apostle to the Gentiles. I stress this,
14 for I want somehow to make the people of Israel jealous of what you Gentiles have, so I might save some of them.
15 For since their rejection meant that God offered salvation to the rest of the world, their acceptance will be even more wonderful. It will be life for those who were dead!
16 And since Abraham and the other patriarchs were holy, their descendants will also be holy—just as the entire batch of dough is holy because the portion given as an offering is holy. For if the roots of the tree are holy, the branches will be, too.
17 But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree—some of the people of Israel—have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree.
18 But you must not brag about being grafted in to replace the branches that were broken off. You are just a branch, not the root.
19 “Well,” you may say, “those branches were broken off to make room for me.”
20 Yes, but remember—those branches were broken off because they didn’t believe in Christ, and you are there because you do believe. So don’t think highly of yourself, but fear what could happen.
21 For if God did not spare the original branches, he won’t spare you either.
22 Notice how God is both kind and severe. He is severe toward those who disobeyed, but kind to you if you continue to trust in his kindness. But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off.
23 And if the people of Israel turn from their unbelief, they will be grafted in again, for God has the power to graft them back into the tree.
24 You, by nature, were a branch cut from a wild olive tree. So if God was willing to do something contrary to nature by grafting you into his cultivated tree, he will be far more eager to graft the original branches back into the tree where they belong.
