Friday, February 24, 2006

I been in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time

In our never ending battle for Truth, Justice, and The American Way, I hereby inaugurate a new irregular series, tentatively called Right Is Wrong. Here's the first installment.

While using Blogger's most valuable tool, the next blog random button, I found this:
Scientific Myths
Tom Bethell has exploded a heap of the current scientific myths in the latest of the PiG series by Regnery: A Politically Incorrect Guide to Science. After reading this book the reader is left wondering what major scientific cause, whether African AIDs, cancer research, global warming, plus a swathe of environmental issues, or cloning and so forth, hold any validity. Bethell's book is a demolition exercise, where the politicising of science and the failure of the press to report independantly and honestly, has bolstered the whole edifice of these "good causes". We rarely hear a dissenting voice; the press has lost it's edge, it's nerve and thus it's ability to be a protection against lies and encroaching political power.

This would be great book to use with older children, perhaps in homeschool context, to review the issues and discuss each topic.
Clearly the Regnery reference should send everyone screaming into the night. If everyone weren't so lazy. Besides, my knees hurt. So we'll just sneer in disgust. Yet, unsurprisingly, there's more:

Malachi's argument runs like this: "You are despising God, in the way you worship, but one day the whole world is going to become worshippers of the Lord!" Malachi is always pointing out into the future – when He will be worshipped in all places, across the world, in all nations – he is looking to the new Covenant. As Adam Clarke put it: "The total abolition of the Mosaic sacrifices, and the establishment of a spiritual worship over the whole earth, is here foretold. The incense of praise, and the pure offering of the Lamb without spot, and through him a holy, loving heart, shall be presented everywhere among the Gentiles; and the Jews and their mock offerings shall be rejected. "
This implies the fact that Israel was to be rejected, for their contempt and their falling-away from the Lord; their covenant-breaking. That transfer happened during Jesus' ministry and was enacted in AD70 when the Temple was destroyed by the Roman armies.` But it's not over – we are sitting here!
The point: what is certain is that God's name is to be glorified all across the nations, the Gentiles. Let's get this straight: what is God's purpose in history, before the Return of Christ?
1.To fill the world with the Gospel
2.to transform and disciple all of the nations of the earth;
3.to truly save the world.
For about the last 150 years the Church has shifted it's focus on to the any minute Return of Christ, (a la Left Behind) rather than the work of evangelizing the whole world and working for Gospel transformation in all area s of life and culture.
The fundie right has a schizophrenic problem with Jews: they must revile them as "not saved," yet they must embrace them as God's chosen people. Tough problem to solve. Kinda like "Love the sinner, hate the sin." Could it be that G*d wants us to learn tolerance? Nah.

Here's a blog complaint: Punctuation, spelling, and style matter!
  • It's is a contraction of IT IS, its is a possesive article.
  • When you use outline form, each entry should use the same form. All or none should be capitalized. Make up your mind.
Having said that, I know clearly what church he's talking about. The Radical Right evangelical churches have been harping on the "any minute return of Christ" since around 33CE. In other words, since the guy left, there have been folks who are certain He's coming back any second. I dunno, but I'm thinking that He would want us to be less concerned with the Brass Ring, and more concerned with helping out around here. But hey, I could be wrong.

Lastly, our earnest writer has this to say:

Left Right, Left Right..
My good friend, Laurie Kubiak, emailed these comments the other day, and I thought I would share them here:

" The bitter truth is that intellectual morons from the left so heavily outnumber those from the right that any attempt at balance is futile. There are good systemic reasons for this. The left places much higher value on ideology. The left-winger thinks utopia is the inevitable consequence of placing the means of production under the management of the state. The capitalist just wants to make a buck. When the state fails to deliver utopia, the left winger accuses the populace of false consciousness (utopia is here, you just can't see it) and takes steps to stfle debate about the wisdom of placing the means of production in the hands of the state. The one thing he does not do is wonder whether was wrong, and needs to change his ideology. If the capitalist fails to make a buck, he tries new things until he succeeds in making a buck. That's the big difference. The left is theoretical and subjective, the right is empirical and objective. This being so it should come as no surprise that there are more committed ideologues impervious to feedback from the real world on the left. "
This is tough, because I don't know whether to slap this person, or try and refute the argument. But since I'm pretty non-violent, we'll try the rebuttal.

This is crap. Utter crap. The only true statement is the "capitalist just wants to make a buck." Otherwise this is such a distortion of reality that I can think of no real way to dispute it. If you argue with someone who insists that they were taken by aliens in a flying saucer for a ride, where does the discussion begin?

Stuck in the sadness of his mind, the writer seeks to characterize "other", in this case the "Left", as an entity bent on total government control (the "means of production" meme) of his life.

Dude, meet GWBush. He's gonna save you. By spying on you. By torturing you. By ridiculing science, and military experts.

But Christ will reign again. For me. Only me. And not the Jews. Or anyone else.

Bastard.

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