As we in the United States move further and further away from a Judeo/Christian worldview and morality the easier it is to be anti-semetic. This is not really anything new for the Jewish population. All through history nations have practiced racism against Jews. I like Tevia’s question to God in “Fiddler on the Roof,” about being the chosen people. “Why don’t You choose somebody else for a while?” This is the one kind of bigotry which seems to be very acceptable among the politically correct today. This isn’t overtly stated but the cliche, “what you are doing speaks so loudly that I can’t hear what you are saying,” comes in to play. There seems to be great concern in the United States by politicians, Liberal news media and those leaders within the “Emergent” movement of the church, that American citizens will commit more hate crimes against Muslims in retaliation to the acts of Islamic terrorists. I recently heard an interview about hate crimes and the guest claimed that about 13.4% of hate crimes are committed against Muslims whereas 65.4% of the hate crimes committed were anti-Jewish. In other words, there are approximately 5 times more likelihood of a hate crime against a Jew than a Muslim but that seems to be ignored by the Left. (These statistics are from the 2010 Hate Crime Statistics in the “Religious Bias” category). The PC crowd regularly expresses concern about the possible rise (not the actual rise) of Anti-Islamic attacks but it is rare if ever that we hear any concern about anti-Jewish attacks. Continue reading …

I have to admit, this started out to be a very different blog than it ended up. Like many, I was discouraged at the results of the election. Yes, I know that God is in control and uses even government for His purposes but sometimes those purposes are to punish His people or the nations in which His people dwell and they suffer as well. To be perfectly honest I am not a big fan of suffering.

I know that politics is messy business and corruption abounds in the hallowed halls of Congress and the White House. Special interest groups are working hard to persuade the Federal Government to use the club of legislation to beat down the opposition. But that is how government works in a Democratic Republic. We vote for candidates that most closely align with our worldview and values and trust they will at the very least protect us from those who have a different view. Continue reading …

In the heat of election season the conventions of each major party reveals what they stand for in their “planks.” The Republicans have vowed fiscal conservatism and although they tend to be pro-life and in favor of traditional marriage they are also saying they are not addressing moral but economic issues in this election. The Democrat Party on the other hand have moral issues as a part of their platform. Abortion on demand, abortifacients included in all insurance plans, normalizing same sex marriage and a variety of other issues of moral significance. Quite a flap was raised when it was realized that all mentions of God were removed from the Democrat platform. U.S. Democratic Party removes reference to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital from official platform made quite the headline. Continue reading …

One of the things that has become fashionable is for Christians and Atheists to discuss whether or not God is moral. I have blogged about this at length. At the risk of pummeling a certain deceased equine, I would like to give the loyal opposition their due. Usually the Atheists will produce a list of passages (mostly but not exclusively) from the Old Testament. Here’s a an example from Common Sense Atheism one of the many blogs talking about the immorality of the Old Testament God:

1. In Genesis 7:21-23, God drowns the entire population of the earth: men, women, children, fetuses, and animals.
2. In Exodus 12:29, God the baby-killer slaughters all Egyptian firstborn children and cattle because their king was stubborn.
3. In Numbers 16:41-49, the Israelites complain that God is killing too many of them. So, God sends a plague that kills 14,000 more of them.
4. In 1 Samuel 6:19, God kills 50,000 men for peeking into the ark of the covenant.
5. In Numbers 31:7-18, the Israelites kill all the Midianites except for the virgins, whom they are allowed to rape as spoils of war.
6. In 2 Kings 2:23-24, some kids tease the prophet Elisha, and God sends bears to dismember them

These passages are supposed to show that the God of Judaism and Christianity is evil, immoral, and sadistic in his ethics of war.

There are, of course, responses from believers. They fall mainly into two categories: Continue reading …

As most of you know by now, the Health Care Law Hits Supreme Court this week. The issue is obviously emotional and heated on both sides. One of the more common claims on the pro-healthcare law side is that healthcare is a basic human right. I was listening to one of our local talk shows, Bruce Wolf and Dan Proft, on WLS AMin Chicago and a caller raised an interesting perspective on this issue. Being an apologist I liked the caller’s idea of using the opposing side’s arguments and views against them. It is something I do and have done in many areas including the question of Darwinism and morality. The idea of “basic human rights” is a subset of the question of morality. Continue reading …

Discussion between liberals/progressives and conservatives is always difficult because we see the world so differently. What makes it more difficult is when objective facts are left out or worse, stated exactly opposite of reality. Sometimes it is an unintentional misstatement akin to Barack Obama saying during this campaign for president that he had been to all 57 states. I suspect he was aware that there aren’t 57 states in the United State. Sometimes, false claims are made due to a lack of familiarity with the topic. Sometimes, they are just plain lies. I am not sure how to classify Joy Behar’s rewriting of the history of the Republican Party and blacks. Joy is one of the regulars on the ABC’s television show, “The View,” and a couple of weeks ago she claimed the Republican Party hasnt been black friendly over the many centuries in this country’.

Was Behar intentionally dishonest or does she not know history? I don’t know how to answer that question. First of all, Continue reading …

When I have an opportunity I enjoy watching John Stossel’s Show on FOX (weekly) or FOX Business (daily). John Stossel is a Libertarian and although I disagree with him on many things I find his style engaging, his questions well thought out and sometimes provocative. In a show this past weekend, that I believe was a rerun, he was interviewing various experts on questions like, should the government be involved in marriage? Should drugs be legalized? Should individuals be allowed to sell their organs for a profit? Along the way surrogate pregnancy was mentioned and David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the CATO Institute (a public policy think tank) pointed out that although the surrogate mother’s expenses were reimbursed, they weren’t really allowed to make money on their services. The discussion went further into adoption and the question was raised as to whether parents should be allowed to sell their children. David Boaz responded with the claim that one could not sell their children because a child isn’t property and a parent can’t own them. We might call this the myth of human rights. Continue reading …