dangerous liberty

In recent propaganda piece, the Soros funded liberals at media matters are arguing a classic strawman in Distorting FDR: Bennett and Hume claimed father of Social Security system wanted privatization. The lede:

In an attempt to promote President Bush’s plan to partially privatize Social Security, nationally syndicated radio host and former Reagan administration official William J. Bennett and FOX News managing editor and anchor Brit Hume falsely claimed that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt advocated replacing Social Security with private accounts.

It would be more accurate to say that Roosevelt envisioned a Social Security system that would eventually be self supporting, not a massive burden on the working class as demographics have changed.

It was put well here, Expertise notes that the SSA report Hume quoted from stated:

the annuities “will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations.”

And notes

today’s system is set up so that current workers are funding the retirement benefits for current retirees, not to fund current workers when they retire. If that was the case, there wouldn’t be a problem with the system, as workers could look forward to the money they put into into the system when they retired.

This blogger also advises a peek at the comments section on the Media Matters piece where one Walter Hart is tearing up the myrmidon followers of media matters propaganda. His comments deserve wider distribution:

(more…)

President Bush gave an excellent speech. I loved the part where he spoke over the grumbling Democrats and empahsized retirement security the government can not touch.

The gratitude of the new Iraqi voter to the parents of slain Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood and the resulting emotion was a mixed bag moment for me, grief for Sgt Norwood’s mother and father and shared joy with a woman who voted with freedom in her homeland for the first time in her life.

This is the core of Bush’s basis for invading Iraq. Peaceful and free people don’t attack each other. They trade. They cooperate.

I’m beginning to think, whether one likes Bush or doesn’t, his will be a notable legacy.

Hurray! Club for Growth’s ads during the campaign were hilarious! Americans can be convinced! They should run a contest for flash ads which support reform and possibly broadcast the best ones…

Social Security Choice: Club for Growth Launches National Ad Campaign to Inform Americans of Social Security Choice

Check John Ray’s A scripture blog, where he (an avowed athiest) discusses certain doctrines and dogmas and applies his reason and knowledge.

Right now, he’s discussing trinitarism, or the doctrine of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Ray maintains this is a pagan doctrine developed some years after the first church. He has some very thought provoking things to say, if one who believes in the Trinity dares. I’ve never really questioned this doctrine for myself and it is nice to have a critic with no obvious axe to grind.

I was raised to believe the trinitarian doctrine, but I have no particular allegiance to it and am open to, ah, strict originalism, if you will!

Ray’s posts on the nature of God and his relationship to the son of God and the apparent logical contradictions in the text have brought a few things to mind upon which I’d like his take.

First, I’m no scholar - I’ve read this and that and can think pretty clearly and there has been much I’ve read in the bible that contradicts what I’ve been taught by other christians. (for instance, the rapture and predestination).

If we posit God’s eternal nature, then we know all we need to know about predestination. Eternity, I believe, means ‘without time’. Not a long time, not forever, but NO TIME. For creatures whose entire existence is framed by time - by birth and death along its progression, in our language tenses, in and out of everything we experience - time. From an eternal perspective we can only surmise, there is no future, no past, no present.

CS Lewis put it best in The Screwtape Letters, (I cannot imagine Ray is unfamiliar with his works) “the present is full of eternal rays” and it is the present moment that we choose charity and grace toward others (among other virtues) or selfishness, etc (vices). There is then John the Baptist “The kingdom of God is at hand”. See also Mark 12:34 and Jesus said “the Kingdom of God is within you”, speaking to the Pharisees (luke 17.20).

But I digress.

My point above is that we must be cognizant of our limited perspective, if indeed we are dealing with an eternal God, especially so when attempting to dissect that presented by the prophets and apostles of old.

Regarding trinitarianism, what shall I make of the passages in Genesis where God refers “us”?

Gen 1.26: NKJV
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all[b] the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

What is meant by ‘our’ in this passage? I checked Biblegateway.com and looked at the other english version (RSV wasn’t there) - all said ‘our’.

This passage is immediately followed by references to God in the singular. What’s up with that?

I also wonder about the logical implications of our being made in God’s image and our awareness of three ‘parts’ of our being: spirit, flesh and soul. Or superego, id and ego, if you will. Here we have corrupted man (according to doctrine) with three ‘parts’ in being. We all know people who are dominated by the sensual, the intellectual or the spiritual. Indeed, we are a mix of the three as our intellects attempt to manage animal urges against spiritual mores.

So what of that? Would an uncorrupted man in the image of God detect these distinctions, or would they be balanced more seamlessly? Are we tripartite beings or is that idea untenable? It seems to be true according to my own inner life.

When I consider the implications of an eternal reality, it seems to me that it could be possible to have a Godhead which is God, but from our lowly perspectives can be seen as 3 different persons, while still being one person, one being, one entity.

Jesus was called ‘emmanuel’ which I’ve been led to believe means ‘God with us’ (if this is wrong I welcome correction), what of that?

For me, if I posit a being outside of time, it opens the door to understanding how scriptural references could not really mean what they appear to say, because of the time-perspective bias of the human writers of scripture.