3. November 2009 by admin.

Despite what either side of the political spectrum may say about the other, many Democrats and Republicans claim to be Christians.  Republicans claim to be the Christian party because they (are supposed to) take more conservative–or, Christian–stances on social issues, while Democrats claim that God has a heart for the poor and would be on their side because they engage in state philanthropy.  Actually, this and the Iraq War are the primary reasons Leftist Christians claim they voted for Obama, despite the fact the Obama’s stances on social issues are diametrically opposed to anything portrayed as righteous in the Bible.  So how can anyone tell if their stance is legitimate?

First of all, you can always recognize a legitimate Christian because they claim a couple of things: that the Bible is divine revelation, and that dependence upon Jesus Christ alone grants salvation.  If a claimed Christian won’t agree with this, then drop them like they’re hot: you’re dealing with an illogical heretic.  But if they agree with those statements, we can rest upon God’s divine law as presented in the Old Testament.  The reason we can say this is because Jesus commanded us to love one another, He said that loving interaction is defined by His divine law, and those laws were presented by Yahweh Himself for His covenant people. Read the rest of this entry »

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26. October 2009 by admin.

There are a lot of people, especially in Seattle, who like to pretend that the Old Testament and a lot of God’s laws don’t matter to modern people. They say this for many reasons, but mostly because they believe that they themselves are somehow morally advanced beyond Biblical law, and as such, the Bible is oftentimes culturally irrelevant.  Aside from the problems which accompany this kind of thinking (like how nobody can really be sure which portions of the Bible are divinely inspired), Christians employing this kind of “logic” generally forget about someone.  He’s called the Devil.  You may have read about him somewhere in the Bible.

If Yahweh is the author of truth and the Devil is partially defined as the author of lies, then anything in the Bible which we suggest is false or evil is from the Devil.  This includes “culturally irrelevant” stances on gender roles (oppressive and unloving!), ideas about submitting to authority (unAmerican, of course!), and keeping the Sabbath holy (before the modern consumptive economy!).  But the most important thing “modern” Christians enjoy painting as the Devil’s work is Levitical law, as they claim it is archaic and oppressive, having completely unacceptable standards for treating women, or unacceptable intolerance of idolators, homosexuals, and false prophets.  These people would claim that when Jesus arrived, suddenly God changed His mind about standards and started preaching a philosophy of hugs while throwing any sort of orderly function–and justice–out the window (”love your enemies” apparently means letting them do whatever they want). Read the rest of this entry »

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15. October 2009 by admin.

As a youngster, I was once convinced that imagining God’s existence as an explanation for the universe was silly, as it made the already unexplainable phenomenon of existence even more complex.  But in retrospect, I had already made one assumption that flowed concurrently with proper theology: that there must be an existence beyond time and space itself.

For instance, no reasonable person has ever read anything about physics and time and determined that the flow of time isn’t malleable, or that it has always existed. Einstein’s theory of relativity showed us that time could be slowed, and good old-fashioned logic showed us that the flow of linear time necessitates a beginning, or we could not have arrived at the present point.  Those ideas being clear, we must all be in agreement that if these statements about time and space are true, then something must exist beyond time and space, mostly because matter and space don’t create themselves, they don’t come from nothing, they aren’t universally constant, and time cannot exist without space.  These are logical conclusions of our existence, and the basis for any reasonable hypothesizing about reality. Read the rest of this entry »

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8. October 2009 by admin.

“And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” -Matthew 18:5-6

It would be safe to say that since the Human Rights Campaign is one of the largest and best-funded homosexual lobby groups in the US, that they would have the resources to comprise the best case for “Biblical” homosexual advocacy.  As such, we can assume that this training course for their Biblical homosexuality seminar “For the Bible Tells Me So” is the best that their community has to offer. Read the rest of this entry »

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5. September 2009 by admin.

I’ve heard many times that drugs ought to legalized.  Never more frequently (and loudly, might I add) than from Ron Paul’s libertarian camp, generally because they believe that the pursuit of happiness is a legitimate right, and doing drugs doesn’t really hurt anyone. 

But this sort of hobgob is from people who understand neither happiness nor the pursuit thereof, and it should be a philosophy reserved for teenagers.  After all, if we can honestly determine that evil is never pursued without some sort of happiness in mind, then not all forms of pursuit are legitimate.  Any law is a testament to that.  And if we can determine that your inner state greatly influences your interactions with others (as behavior comes from nowhere else other than within you), then legalizing more forms of personal pollution would only seek to negatively impact social harmony.  The notion that drugs have any positive qualities was tossed aside only ten years after the drug experimentation of the 60’s, following the explosion of crime and illegitimate childbirth fueled by the excess consumption and rapid moral deterioration.

Nevertheless, since many are inclined to ignore visible consequences of drug abuse, a philosophical case against drug use–and even casual drinking–must be made.  As an ex drug-addict and a current drinker of alcohol, I feel there is no one better to make the case against drugs and alcohol than myself, though I make myself to be a fool for drinking.  So let us begin with some obvious statements. Read the rest of this entry »

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1. September 2009 by admin.

If a man sings a song to your little girl about having sex, what would you do?

If a man tells your little boy that it’s cool to shoot up and dress like a woman, what would tell that man?

If a man swears in your mother’s face, would you tolerate him?

If a man says your God is a fraud, and that His laws are worthless, would you give him your money?

There was a time when Americans would have been up in arms over these kinds of things, especially when these statements were produced in a mass-media form for youngsters.  Looking back 50 years ago, that seems almost fantastical: something from an alternate dimension in which people actually cared about statements, in which people actually believed that the person you were would determine what kinds of behaviors you exerted, and that inundating the mind with ideas would have some sort of effect upon the receiver.  Poppycock, we say today.  There is no Devil’s Music. Read the rest of this entry »

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4. July 2009 by admin.

Looking back on the New Testament, one of the most confusing and difficult commandments Jesus gave is the call to resist retaliation.  He said in the book of Matthew, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.  Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.”

In short, Jesus seems to command us to not seek retribution for wrongdoings, ranging from physical assault to lawsuits to legal unfairness, covering the whole gamut of uncomfortable things that nobody likes to have happen to them.  At face value, taken in its most radical and consistent sense, that means you can’t even spank your kid. Read the rest of this entry »

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27. June 2009 by admin.

Earlier this week I had a conversation with an old friend of mine who doesn’t believe in Christianity. The discussion was over the French government possibly banning the burkha, which my friend found to be a gross violation of civil rights, most notably the choice of what to wear, as well as the separation of church and state (kind of an American thing, eh?). His friends–since I must note that this took place on Facebook–all joined the band-wagon, suggesting that the French government was taking an immoral stance against individual liberty, and that France should stay out of religious matters.

But most importantly, we came to a point in which I quoted the Qur’an, which stated that a man could beat his wife if she were acting out of line, and I asked both Eric and his friends if they thought the French government should have any say in practically ritual wife-beating.  His response?  A quote from Deuteronomy, which stated that a woman’s hand should be chopped off if she intervenes in a fight and grabs a man by his genitals. Read the rest of this entry »

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6. June 2009 by admin.

Throughout human existence, many have asked themselves where evil came from, and most end up more confused than before they asked.  Let’s look at some great examples of futile thinking about evil (the titles provided in bold for easy memorization), and then proceed to some truth.

1) Authority and Situation

Philip Zimbardo, elected the president of the American Psychological Association in 2002, would say that evil comes from a combination between authority and situation, citing the Milgram experiments, the incidence at Abu Ghraib, and the suicides at Jonestown as prime examples.  But if you look a little closer, all Zimbardo and his psychologist friends are saying is that circumstances give an ability to express the evil that already exists within the human mind.  And what’s so “intellectual” about that?  Of COURSE evil can present itself when given a chance: without the situational potential to commit physical evil, you can’t commit evil.  Just like when you don’t have a car, you can’t drive into a tree.

2) Culture and Tradition

Some would blame culture and tradition as the source of evil, claiming that our corrupted cultures–and religions!–are polluting our minds and making us incapable of reaching forward into an intangible utopia.  Unfortunately for them, they didn’t ask themselves where the cultural corruption came from.  Read the rest of this entry »

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30. May 2009 by admin.

If you’ve ever heard the term “I’m spiritual, but not religious,” you’ve probably at some point wondered whether organized religion encumbers people’s spiritual lives by interfering with the individual’s Christian walk.  And this is a normal thing to ask.  After all, it’s absolutely true that God interacts with individuals in individual ways.

But if God proves himself through personal interaction to be morally and doctrinally inconsistent, this makes God out to be either a liar or incapable of determining truth for Himself.  Either way represents a lack of the qualities necessary to make Him worthy of ultimate righteousness and thus respect.  That, or people are talking to themselves.

So if it must be that God interacts with humans in a consistent manner, religion would be the result of many humans being impacted by Him, and interacting because of His divine revelations.  Different stances may be taken on those revelations from His word, but this doesn’t affect whether the message–with an actual intent–was actually given, if in fact it was given. Read the rest of this entry »

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19. May 2009 by admin.

The other day, Obama gave a speech before Notre Dame that resulted in a lot of Catholics getting angry and Alan Keyes getting arrested (4).  Given the highly volatile situation, what would a man in Obama’s shoes speak about?

This article contains Obama’s paraphrased speech, comically restructured to more blatantly display his logical errors and actual statements.  If you’d like to read the original speech or even watch it, the text and video are provided and highly recommended before reading.   If you don’t read the actual speech, you won’t believe the actual stupidity that I point out in the following paraphrasing.  It should also be noted that this paraphrasing begins during the second video clip (out of the four), because the first portions of the speech were too boring.

Also, don’t expect this to make a whole lot of sense.  This is Obama speaking.

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Obama: America is a terrible place to live.  Today, we live in a country where strong people take advantage of weak people, and we are committing prejudiced acts just like we were in ancient times.  This, my friends, is completely unacceptable, and as a college-educated crowd, you realize that our extreme prejudice as a society is a big, big problem because of White Christians (editor’s note: no other oppressive group available).  This is the reason I’m going to blabber on tonight. Read the rest of this entry »

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26. April 2009 by admin.

Since America’s inception, the pursuit of happiness has been considered one of the essential human rights owed to our citizens, and has lately been used to defend the “rights” of people traditionally on morality’s bad side: advocates of sexual revolutions, easy divorces, gay marriage, abortion, and even Satanism.  But just as almost everything our forefathers said has been redefined and misconstrued due to a lack of either morality or intelligence (as gun rights are definitely not for hunting), so has the pursuit of happiness been turned into a mockery of what it should be.  The reader should note that this can only happen if you don’t understand how happiness works.  As such, let us consider three points.

First, thinkers must understand that all evils are relational, either being between the offender and a person or between an offender and God.  It is conceptually impossible to commit an evil when you’re the only person in existence.

Second, all people in all portions of the globe pursue happiness, but both where they look and how they look determine whether happiness results, and even the happiness of those around them. Obviously, some pursuits are noble and others aren’t, with some leading to considerably more unhappiness as a result of immoral pleasure-seeking.  A man who seeks happiness through financial stability may either work hard or con people.  A person who seeks to maintain power can either persuade the masses with his good policies or by chopping heads off in the public square.  And most of us–excluding actual sociopaths with mental disabilities or the perverse–recognize the difference between proper and improper methods of pursuit. Read the rest of this entry »

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14. March 2009 by admin.

Editor’s note: We here at American Clarity would like to let the readers know that this article is a little different than the last ones, being primarily aimed at followers of Christ.  We highly suggest following any links that reference biblical doctrine, as this article would be tough to defend without the Bible on which it is based.  Enjoy, and God bless.

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With Obama’s declaration that no God condones abortion, one would expect a population of over 300 million people to—at the very least—wonder whether he was expecting a lightning bolt to strike (1). After all, saying something like that and then not only exporting abortions to other countries on our dollar, but also lifting the ban for federal funding on embryonic stem cell research and supporting the Freedom of Choice Act would seem a little bold (and by the way, the FOCA allows the termination of life until fetal viability, or the ability to survive outside the womb) (2)(3). But on the Kenyan goes, not only without blinking an eye, but also apparently secure in his belief that he stands within Christ’s favor.

But what exactly makes a Christian?

First of all, seeing where Obama gets his logic isn’t impossible. Coming from an eternal perspective, in which Christ declared that his kingdom was not of this earth and that we should render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, one could argue that Christians should abstain from enforcing their will on the public(4)(5). After all, if the ultimate goal of this life is to personally follow Christ and win the hearts and souls of those you come in contact with, pushing your standards on anyone else isn’t going to win anyone. Not only is every single one of us fatally flawed and in need of redemption, but you can’t win the hearts of those outside the faith without loving them as human beings and extending the gifts of charity Christ has enabled you to give. This loving attitude extends to all, be they hookers, junkies, or the cast from How I Met Your Mother. Read the rest of this entry »

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2. January 2009 by admin.

Who would Jesus vote for?

As a Christian, this is a question you’ve got to ask yourself every time an election season comes around. Not necessarily because you actually believe Jesus would have actually voted for any particular person (since Jesus was pretty clear about his kingdom being in heaven and not on earth), but because you have a duty to your family and friends to be an active citizen, upkeeping the gifts of freedom and moral prosperity that have been handed to you by your forefathers. As such a Christian American, you’ve got to first find out which people most properly support the values of Christianity.

So where do you start? Read the rest of this entry »

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