1516 Martin Luther preached against the abuse of indulgences one year prior to his nailing of the 95 theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg. 1517 Luther posted 95 Theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, calling on all and sundry to debate the question of indulgences by word of mouth or by pen. As a result Thomas Cardinal Cajetan (1469 - 1534) at Rome wrote " On Indulgences " against Luther. Johann Tetzel got Professor Konrad Wimpina (ca. 1460 - 1531) of the new University of Frankfort to write two sets of theses against Luther. Johannes Mair von Eck (1486 - 1543) of Ingolstadt denounced his friend Luther as a " Bohemian, " equating him to Jan Hus (ca. 1369 - 1415).
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I am on the BART train trying to get home, what a strange ride this has been! First we were trapped in the Embarcadero Station for 45 minutes waiting for a train because some inconsiderate jerk committed suicide by jumping in front of a train at Powell Street. This caused them to shut down the station while the coroner did his business and caused tens of thousands of people to be significantly delayed on their trip home. Finally we got a train and only a few minutes later there was a 5.6 earthquake that caused BART to halt all trains while they checked for damage. I like boring uneventful rides, interesting rides are not good. Ah well, I think I might finally make it home, we are just outside of Dublin now... if I survive my bike ride home from the station I'm having a whiskey and going to bed :-) Other gripes for the day: I got a note from the incompetent louts at the Voter's Registrar saying I had not registered a PARTY! What crap! I deliberately re-registered as a Repu...
Proverbs 30:7-9 7 Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: 8 Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, 9 lest I be full and deny you and say, "Who is the LORD?" or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.
The other day we watched the movie "I am David" on DVD. I don't often write movie reviews but this movie was so good I feel like I need to say something here. I initially rented it because it had James Caviezel in it, the actor who played Jesus in "The Passion of the Christ". I was wondering what else he had worked on and this was one that came up. The reviews were all good so I ordered it from Netflix. The story is about a boy trapped in a communist labor camp in Bulgaria in the early 1950's and his escape and journeys as a refugee. The story is simple but incredibly moving. The actor who plays David, Ben Tibber , is exceptional, his eyes and face are so expressive, and much of the story is told just by looking at his face, his reactions to what is going on around him are as real as any I've ever seen. James Caviezel's character is actually rather Christ like, at least in that he gives up his life for another, saving David by taking his place...
Philipp Nicolai (1556 - 1608) was a pastor in Germany during the Great Plague, which took the lives of 1,300 of his parishioners during a sixth-month period. In addition to his heroic pastoral ministry during that time of stress and sorrow, he wrote the texts for " Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying " and " O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright, " known, respectively, as the king and queen of the Lutheran chorales. Johann Heermann (1585 - 1647), also a German pastor, suffered from poor health as well as from the ravages of the Thirty Years' War (1618 - 1648). His hymn texts are noted for their tenderness and depth of feeling. Paul Gerhardt (1607 - 1676) was another Lutheran pastor who endured the horrors of the Thirty Years' War. By 1668 he lost his pastoral position in Berlin (for refusing to compromise his Lutheran convictions) and endured the death of four of his five children and his wife. He nevertheless managed to write 133 hymns, all of which reflect hi...
These women were exemplary Christians who demonstrated their faith by their material support of the Church. Dorcas (also known as Tabitha) was well-known and much loved for her acts of charity in the city of Joppa, especially for her making clothes for the poor. When Dorcas died suddenly, the members of her congregation sent to the neighboring city of Lydda for the Apostle Peter, who came and raised her from the dead (Acts 9:36 - 41). Lydia was a woman of Thyatira, who worked at Philippi selling a famous purple dye that was so much in demand in the ancient world. She was also a "worshiper of God" at the local synagogue. When the Apostle Paul encountered her in prayer among other proselyte women, his preaching of the Word brought Lydia to faith in Christ. She and her friends thus became the nucleus of the Christian community in Philippi (16:13 - 15, 40). Phoebe was another faithful woman associated with the Apostle Paul. She was a deaconess from Cenchreae (the port of Corinth)...
(10-23) 06:26 PDT SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Like Hurricane Katrina evacuees two years earlier in New Orleans, thousands of people rousted by natural disaster fled to the NFL stadium here, waiting out the calamity and worrying about their homes. The similarities ended there, as an almost festive atmosphere reigned at Qualcomm Stadium. Bands belted out rock 'n' roll, lavish buffets served gourmet entrees, and massage therapists helped relieve the stress for those forced to flee their homes because of wildfires. "The people are happy. They have everything here," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared Monday night after his second Qualcomm tour. Although anxieties ran high, the misery index seemed low as the celebrity governor waded through the mob. Scarcely a complaint was registered with him. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/10/23/national/a024152D24.DTL&tsp=1
Yesterday I drove my car to the BART station. I thought I would save some time because I was dropping off Serenity at day care and then going directly to the BART station. Boy was I wrong! In the first place, I'm leaving late because I’m working 9-5 all this week. There was a lot of traffic on the road and it took forever to get to the station. Then I had to park about halfway back to the house in the far western end of the BART parking lot and walk for about ten minutes to get to the station! It took way longer to drive, park and walk than it does to ride the bike all the way to the entrance of the station. The same thing on the way back, traffic and walking took longer than just hopping on the bicycle and riding home along the Iron Horse Trail! Today I'll just ride my bike.
Krauthammer's razor (with apologies to Occam): In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.
The US arms industry is backing Hil liar y Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street's favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama. Full story is here. Hil LIAR y Clinton is the candidate of the Merchants of Death and Greed, who is shocked by this news? If the Merchants of Death and Wall Street are your backers you are my enemy, and you are an enemy of humanity. A vote for Hil LIAR y is a vote for mass murder and theft. A vote for Ron Paul is a vote for freedom and peace.
...a 72-year-old grandfather who promises...nothing other than to leave [us] alone... Check out Anatomy of the Ron Paul Nation By Cyd Malone
At the start of the Academy Award-winning movie "American Beauty," a character videotapes a plastic grocery bag as it drifts into the air, an event he casts as a symbol of life's unpredictable currents, and declares the romantic moment as a "most beautiful thing." To the eyes of an oceanographer, the image is pure catastrophe. In reality, the rogue bag would float into a sewer, follow the storm drain to the ocean, then make its way to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists. The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man's land between San Francisco and Hawaii. Full SF GATE story is here . When I go to the store I almost always use the plastic bags. Sometimes I recycle them, sometimes I reuse them for trash bags or dog p...
October 17, 2007 The other day, my old sparring partner in so many Congressional committee hearings, Alan Greenspan, was on the Fox Business Channel. After Alan promoted his new book, the reporter asked if we really needed a central bank. Greenspan looked stunned, and then said that was a good question; he actually talked about fiat money vs. a gold standard. Now, the ex-Fed chairman is not about to endorse our sound monetary policy, but you know our Revolution is working when such a question is asked in the mainstream media, and this powerful man gives such an answer. You and I are reopening a whole host of questions that the establishment thought it had closed off forever: on war, on taxes and spending, on inflation and gold, and on the rule of law and our Constitution. A few years ago, I asked a famous conservative columnist a question. What did he think about the prospects for a restored Robert Taft wing of the Republican party? He thought I was joking. As you know, I was not. Afte...
Ignatius of Antioch , Pastor and Martyr Ignatius was the bishop of Antioch in Syria at the beginning of the second century A.D. and an early Christian martyr. Near the end of the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan (98 - 117), Ignatius was arrested, taken in chains to Rome and eventually thrown to the wild beasts in the arena. On the way to Rome he wrote letters to the Christians at Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, Rome, Philadelphia and Smyrna and also to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. In the letters, which are beautifully pastoral in tone, Ignatius warned against certain heresies (false teachings). He also repeatedly stressed the full humanity and deity of Christ, the reality of Christ's bodily presence in the Lord's Supper, the supreme authority of the bishop and the unity of the Church found in her bishops. Ignatius was the first to use the word catholic to describe the universality of the Church. His Christ-centeredness, his courage in the face of martyrdom, and his zeal for the tr...
Please read the whole article, it's glorious, life without cops can be a good thing :-) Anarchy, or Spontaneous Order, on the Streets of Saigon by Joshua Snyder News of the several successful experiments by several European cities with getting the state out of traffic regulation created quite a stir last year. (See European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs. ) Non-libertarian-minded folks saw it as counter-intuitive, not self-evident, that people themselves would do a better job looking out for their own safety rather than relying on a nanny state to warn them of every conceivable danger. But it turned out that drivers slowing down at intersections and looking both ways was much, much safer than blindly trusting one's life to a mindless green light. Perhaps these ...
Check out this set of stories about police thugs in several different "police" departments around the Empire: The "Showtime Syndrome" I once felt it necessary to concede to people, when talking about these myriad cases of brutal assaults on innocent people by the so-called "police," that there was at least the slight possibility that these cases are the exception and that most "police officers" are dedicated servants of the law and their communities. I no longer am willing to concede this point. The police in America have been militarized so much that they are no longer "police" at all but are really an army of occupation . Excessive use of force is not rare but common, and violence is the first response by these thugs at the slightest sign of resistance by the peasants they rule. I have less than no use for the police. I have never been helped by the police and would prefer they were disbanded completely, or at least disarme...
It looks like they will be making a movie of the Hobbit, sadly Peter Jackson will not be directing. I am looking forward to seeing it anyway though. From the BBC: McKellen keen to be Gandalf again Sir Ian said the Hobbit film was becoming "more and more Likely" Sir Ian McKellen has said he would be "very pleased" to reprise his role as wizard Gandalf in the planned film of JRR Tolkien's novel The Hobbit. "If I am still functioning and working well, it is very likely I would be asked to do it," he told Reuters. Sir Ian played the role in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, landing an Oscar nomination in the process. Full story is here .
Oh Woe! Woe! Doom and despair! Oh pity poor wretched me who has melted down his computer! Bummer. I was fooling around with part of the operating system I ought not to have been fooling with, since I do not know what I am doing. Changing "skins" for windows, making it look "cool," as I thought. And I found upon the World Wide Web a place where one said he could make my computer look " WAY COOL " and I did download his evil program and I did run it without looking at it or really thinking about it. And behold it did summon up the demonic blue screen of death, and did dump memory and did prevent booting up of the computer in any way at all. And lo, I was forced to format my hard disk and reinstall my system to its original factory issued state and all was lost... all was lost... woe is me! But I have back ups of most everything anyway so it's really not all that bad :-) It is just a royal pain in the neck for sure.
Psalm 65 O God of Our Salvation To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. A Song. 1 Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion, and to you shall vows be performed. 2 O you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come. 3 When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions. 4 Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple! (This is one of the morning Psalms for the 12th of the month and this portion leaped out at me today. Even in the Old Testament it is clear that we are saved by the actions of God and not of ourselves.)
Philip, also called the Evangelist (Acts 21:8), was one of the seven men appointed to assist in the work of the twelve Apostles and of the rapidly growing early church by overseeing the distribution of food to the poor (6:1 - 6). Following the martyrdom of Stephen, Philip proclaimed the Gospel in Samaria and led Simon the Sorcerer to become a believer in Christ (8:4 - 13). He was also instrumental in bringing about the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch (8:26 - 39), through whom Philip became indirectly responsible for bringing the Good News of Jesus to the people on the continent of Africa. In the town of Caesarea he was host for several days to the Apostle Paul, who stopped there on his last journey to Jerusalem (21:8 - 15). [From " Commemorations Biographies , " Lutheran Service Book, LCMS Commission on Worship]
In yet another in a seemingly endless series of anti-freedom and un-American decisions the 9 utterly corrupt, traitorous, conscienceless vermin of the SCOTUS have decreed, without reference to that obsolete rag the constitution, that a lawsuit against the Empire can't go forward because it would expose "state secrets." Said "secrets" being the fact that the Empire routinely kidnaps, tortures, abuses and even murders people without even pretending to follow the due process of law. Since the "state" wants to do this , and since it would be very humiliating for most Americans to admit they live in a barbaric and evil "state" that routinely murders and tortures people and they might demand that the "state" stop doing it if it were proven, this becomes a vital state secret ! --------------------------------------------------- (10-09) 13:25 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) -- A German man who says he was abducted and tortured by the CIA as pa...
From LewRockwell.com I Advocate the Same Foreign Policy the Founding Fathers Would by Ron Paul by Ron Paul Published on October 8, 2007, in the Manchester Union-Leader . Any response to this paper's Friday editorial on my foreign policy position must rest on two fundamental assertions: first, that the Founding Fathers were not isolationists; and second, that their political philosophy – the wisdom of the Constitution, the Declaration, and our Revolution itself – is not just a primitive cultural relic. If I understand the editors' concerns, I have not been accused of deviating from the Founders' logic; if anything I have been accused of adhering to it too strictly. The question, therefore, before readers...
Abraham (known early in his life as Abram) was called by God to become the father of a great nation (Genesis 12). At the age of 75 and in obedience to God's command, he, his wife Sarah and his nephew Lot moved southwest from the town of Haran to the land of Canaan. There God established a covenant with Abraham (15:18), promising the land of Canaan to his descendants. At the age of 100 Abraham and Sarah were finally blessed with Isaac, the son long promised to them by God. Abraham demonstrated supreme obedience when God commanded him to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. God spared the young man's life only at the last moment and provided a ram as a substitute offering (22:1 - 19). Abraham died at the age of 175 and was buried in the Cave of Machpelah, which he had purchased earlier as a burial site for Sarah. He is especially honored as the first of the three great Old Testament Patriarchs - and for his " righteousness before God through faith " (Romans 4:1-12). [From ...
In case you needed more confirmation that really there is only a single huge monolithic and totalitarian political party in the American Empire fully dedicated to stripping the few civil liberties that still remain from the Old Republic, there is this today from the New York Times , official mouthpiece of the ruling classes: Democrats Seem Ready to Extend Wiretap Powers By ERIC LICHTBLAU and CARL HULSE WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 — Two months after insisting that they would roll back broad eavesdropping powers won by the Bush administration, Democrats in Congress appear ready to make concessions that could extend some crucial powers given to the National Security Agency. Administration officials say they are confident they will win approval of the broadened authority that they secured temporarily in August as Congress rushed toward recess. Some Democratic officials concede that they may not come up with enough votes to stop approval. As the debate over the eavesdropping powers of th...
Last night Lora and I attended the San Francisco Symphony together. We had a nice father-daughter night out. Mike graciously agreed to watch Serenity for us, they went to church while we took the train to the city and had dinner at Chevy's because I had a coupon :-) Then we went down to Davies Hall and heard: CONDUCTOR AND FEATURED ARTISTS Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor Jeremy Denk, piano PROGRAM Beethoven King Stephen Overture Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 Brahms Symphony No. 2 Jeremy Denk was fantastic in the Piano Concerto No. 1 and came back for an encore after the end, though I must admit my musical ignorance and say I have no idea just what the piece he played after the concerto might have been. The Brahms Symphony No. 2 was wonderful as well, I do love the last movement! I've got that symphony on a BBC Orchestra CD, so I know it well. :-) The King Stephen Overture was OK but, for Beethoven, it seems a little perfunctory, like he was just doing a job and no...
Back in the days, not all that long ago, when the American Empire was at least pretending to still be a free republic, this sort of thing would have resulted in huge outcry against the perpetrators. I predict that this will be received by the subjects of the Evil Empire with a shrug instead of the outrage it clearly calls for. Torture is torture, no matter what the scum working for the emperor call it. Slavery is Freedom, War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength. 1984 is here in full bloom today. New York Times October 4, 2007 Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations [Torture] By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations. But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales ’s arrival as attorney general in February 2...
Check out this candidate match game on USA Today. Of course I came out a very solid Ron Paul voter, since I agree with him on virtually every issue :-) It is cool to have a candidate you can actually back fully, without any reservations at all.
What a great idea: S.F. moving to catch up with European bike-share programs Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, October 3, 2007 <SCRIPT language='JavaScript1.1' SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N2998.SFGate.com/B2489613;abr=!ie;sz=88x31;ord=308583546?"> </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT> <A HREF="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/N2998.SFGate.com/B2489613;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=88x31;ord=308583546?"> <IMG SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/N2998.SFGate.com/B2489613;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=88x31;ord=308583546?" BORDER=0 WIDTH=88 HEIGHT=31 ALT="Click Here"></A> </NOSCRIPT> San Francisco is one push of the peda...
I just stumbled upon this site, I'll be checking it out in detail since it seems in agreement with my take on the relationship between Christians and the state. One thing that caught my eye was a comparison of Romans 13 and Titus 2. In both cases Christians are being told to be "subject" to authority, but in one case most people say it doesn't condone the authority, slave owners, but in the other it does, government. Odd that :-) In any case check it out:
I write quite a bit about what I see as problematic and false teachings in some evangelical Christian circles. I hope that I am not sounding self righteous when I do it. Self righteousness is the problem, any righteousness outside of that provided by Christ is the problem. I am utterly sinful, incapable of even wanting to good except in Christ. So when I see something that is presented as being Christian that ignores the perfect, sinless life, death and resurrection of Jesus I worry that something else might be taking the place that belongs to Him alone. Our Lord Himself says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." So yes, I really do think it is important to get it right, not all of the details of theology and liturgy, those are important, but ultimately if you get this one thing wrong nothing else matters. I've been trying to work this out in my head and explain it here but somehow I can't quite express ...
Matthew 7:13-23 (ESV) 13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. 15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. 21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your n...
I heard about this story the other day and didn't have enough information to make the declaration I make today, this was plain Police State Murder. This sort of thing does not happen in a free country, but it does happen in the Evil Totalitarian Empire that Amerika has degenerated into. Here is the news story from the New York Daily News , and here is an editorial take from Lew Rockwell's site . If you don't want to be sickened by how low Amerika has fallen then don't read them. I'm angry, and this time I don't think I am going to need to repent, this is plain evil and cries out for justice.
I have been told that my post " Is this really God " was insulting. While it was not my original intention to be harsh and insulting when I began to review the video " Interview with God " I recognize that I allowed my emotions to run overboard and I was not kind in my words. As I went along I began to take sinful pleasure in heaping derision on what I saw as error. Sad to say I lived up to my richly deserved reputation once again. I have sinned in not putting the best construction on things and I have been called to repentance, and I do repent of my insulting and harsh tone and words, though not of my opinion about the theology of the video. Really though, what can we expect of an Angry Gnome? Well I know what God expects of me "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." ( Galatians 5:22 ) While I know I will fail these are most certainly the things I must aim for. Thanks be to God for the salvation...
From NBC/NJ’s Mike Memoli Even a half hour after Ron Paul 's "Revolution" rally ended in downtown Manchester, there was a crowd larger than other candidates could only hope to draw. The campaign estimated that as many as 800 people showed up as the Texas congressman kicked off a canvassing effort in New Hampshire's three largest cities. The campaign gave out buttons asking: "Who is Ron Paul?" But who are Ron Paul's supporters? "I think they're new to the process," said Paul's son, Rand Paul. "We definitely have Democrats that are crossing over, Libertarians crossing over, Independents crossing over. And I think the people that come out are definitely gonna vote." Full Story
I have a question or maybe a comment. In reading the account of the creation in the bible it occurred to me that the angels must have been created at some point. I began to wonder when that was. Was that a separate creation from the "In the beginning?" Or where they created on the first day or another day? From extra biblical sources, like movies and novels, I have the impression that the angels, and thus Satan, were ancient creatures who had been around for an extremely long time. But, is that necessarily true? Could it be that Satan and the other angels were created by God at some point in that 6 day period when God created the Heavens and the Earth? It seems to me that it must have been during the 6 days because of the fact that Genesis 1:1 says "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Don't the heavens include the angels of God? Perhaps I'm off base here but... If that is true is it important? Probably not :-) But it makes t...