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Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage has opened a can of worms for Australians of Faith

Posted by whatyareckon on January 16, 2020
Posted in: Australia, Australian Federal Government, Christianity, Gays, LGBT, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

The following is from an Australian Senator bringing her constituents up to date  concerning the Religious Freedom Bill.  This will not turn out good for those who have religious beliefs based on the Christian Scriptures. As Paul wrote in Romans 1:18, 24, 26, 27 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Here is what the Senator wrote; ‘Australians of family and faith want to be able to live their lives in accordance with their faith and their convictions.  The growing body of cases in Australia of people facing harassment, intimidation and persecution because of their religious beliefs and actions highlights the need for positive religious freedom laws.  Some are even losing their livelihoods.
Indeed, since the 2017 same-sex marriage campaign and postal survey, people who hold and practice traditional values of marriage and family have been intimidated and harassed.

When freedom of speech, thought, conscience and belief is framed only as an “exemption” to other rights, they are “read down” against positive rights, rendering them subordinate to those other rights.  A regime of positive rights in the form of religious freedom legislation would give greater effect to the right to manifest one’s freedom of thought, conscience and belief as outlined in Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Consequently, in June 2019, I launched a petition in the Australian Senate calling for the enactment of a Religious Freedoms Act to protect the right to freedom of speech, thought, conscience and religion.
To date more than 30,000 original hardcopy signatures have been tabled in the Senate and I thank you to those of you who have signed my petition.  My petition is ongoing and more signatures will be tabled this year.
I have continued to regularly speak in the Senate and in other forums on the need for protection of religious freedom as well as working with faith leaders and their communities toward this end.

On 29 August 2019, the Federal Government released its first exposure draft of the Religious Discrimination Bills.  Following almost 6,000 submissions and strong pressure from religious leaders, experts and stakeholders from across the faith spectrum, on 10 December 2019, the Federal Government released its second exposure draft of the Religious Discrimination Bills.

The second exposure draft Bills are available at: http://ag.gov.au/Consultations/Pages/religious-freedom-bills-second-exposure-drafts.aspx

Whilst the Second Draft did address some changes, there are still major issues of concern including:

  1. The current draft bills DO NOT include or define religious bodies as being involved in “commercial activities”.  Therefore, no full legal protection is provided to aged care facilities, retirement villages, residential colleges, school boarding houses, camps, conference facilities or marriage counselling organisations being operated by religious organisations.  Protections should extend to all bodies which are conducted in accordance with, or in furtherance of, the doctrines, tenets and beliefs of a religion.  That a religious body pursuing a religious purpose could cease to be a religious body because of “commercial activities” is deeply problematic.  The solution is to ensure the commercial activities test MUST be removed.
  1. The current draft bills DO NOT provide legal protections from discrimination to religious corporate bodies and unincorporated associations.  The definition of “persons” should not just include corporate bodies, but there needs to be a mechanism by which a religious belief can be attributed to a corporate body in light of judicial rulings that a corporate body cannot have a belief.  The solution is to ensure religious corporate bodies and religious unincorporated associations MUST be protected.
  1. The current draft bills DO NOT provide full legal protections to religious bodies to preference the employment of staff that support the religious ethos of the organisation as well as to religious bodies to preference people of faith in the use of their facilities.   This should include any consequential amendments to the Fair Work Act and the Sex Discrimination Act.  The proposal that faith-based aged care, retirement villages and hospitals only be permitted to discriminate in respect of employment, but not services, will seriously compromise their ability to act consistently with their religious ethos.  The solution is to ensure religious bodies MUST be afforded full legal protections to preference the employment of staff that support their religious ethos as well as preference people of faith in the use of their facilities
  1. The current draft bills DO NOT extend to State vilification laws.    “Vilify” needs to be defined to remove the implication that “causing harm” amounts to vilification.  The interaction between the protection of statements of belief and the protections to employees against indirect religious discrimination needs greater clarity.  The “reasonableness test” (clause 8) leaves open the prospect that an employer may dismiss an employee, or a professional may have their accreditation removed, even though their statement of belief is protected under clause 42.  The solution is for the protection for statements of belief MUST NOT be removed or watered down but extended to include State vilification laws.
  1. The current draft bills DO NOT provide protections for employees to make statements of faith at their workplace or private time without fear of retribution from their employer (no freedom of speech or religion).  It will not protect you from being the next Israel Folau!  Concerns remain with the $50M threshold, the principle of “unjustifiable financial hardship”, and the fact that the current drafting may in fact incentivise secondary boycotts and third-party activism.  They should also apply to persons irrespective of the turnover of their employer and whether they are engaged by government.  Also, reasonable statements of belief should be protected from adverse discriminatory action by qualifying bodies and others (not just employers).  In order to provide adequate protection, the protections to employees and professionals should extend to reasonable statements of belief made inside and outside the workplace or in the course of their profession.  The solution is to ensure genuine statements of belief MUST be protected across the board inside and outside work.
  1. The current draft bills DO NOT override State laws, which gives too much power to State Governments that may be hostile to religion to pass laws prohibiting certain activities.  The definition of “religious activity” should exclude “criminal” rather than “unlawful” activity.  “Criminal activity” means activity that constitutes a criminal offence under the laws of the Commonwealth or any State or Territory.  Whilst the Second Draft excludes council by-laws from lawful religious activity, it otherwise allows State or Territory laws to override the Bill.  For example, the Victorian and Queensland Governments have recently proposed to ban conversion therapy (which is so broadly defined that it includes traditional religious teaching on sexuality and prayer and pastoral care based on that teaching).  Such core traditional religious practices may be made unlawful by State laws and the Bill would provide no protection to religious bodies or individuals from discrimination.  Further, courts have taken restrictive views of what comprises ‘religious activity’, confining that notion to prayer, worship or the observance of religious rituals or customs.  This interpretation has the potential to exclude religious statements on matters such as marriage, gender or the family from the Bill’s protections, or to exclude religiously motivated acts, or to exclude refusals to perform ‘secular’ acts that are contrary to religious teaching.  In light of this jurisprudence, such activities should be clearly included within the protected notion of ‘religious activity’.  The solution is to ensure draft bills MUST exclude only activities that are considered criminal offences.
  1. The current draft bill contains a “reasonableness test” that TOO BROADLY permits “reasonable” policies and conditions that discriminate against religious people and organisations.  This leaves too much discretion to tribunals and courts to decide what is “reasonable”.  The “reasonableness test” for indirect discrimination and the “comparator test” for direct discrimination is too broad and leaves too much discretion to tribunals and courts to decide what is “reasonable” and is therefore inconsistent with the strict grounds for limiting religious manifestation in Article 18(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  Both tests will weaken the protections to religious believers.  The solution is to ensure draft bills MUST be strictly interpreted to international standards Australia has ratified as under Article 18(3) of the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights.
  1. The current draft bills DO NOT provide legal and financial protections to Charitable organisations.  The Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Freedom of Religion) Bill 2019 proposes an amendment to the Charities Act 2013 (Cth) that will clarify that a charity may advocate for a traditional view of marriage and not fail the requirement that it conform to public policy.  This needs to be extended to ensure that a charity will not breach the public interest test and will not lose its tax-exempt status due to its traditional view of marriage.  The solution is for Charitable organisations espousing traditional views of family and faith MUST retain their charitable status without any qualifications, exemptions or exceptions.
  1. The current draft bills DO NOT provide protections to individuals who may hold genuine beliefs (minority) that are not the view of a religious denomination (majority).  For example, an alternative point of view from a person in that particular denomination could be used to declare that individual’s belief as wrong.  The protections in the Bill to religious bodies and persons should not turn on whether ‘a person of the same religion … could reasonably consider [the conduct] to be in accordance’ with the beliefs.  The focus should remain on the sincerity of the belief, consistent with the approach taken amongst leading Anglophone Courts across the world, including the High Court in the Scientology Case.  The requirement that religious bodies and persons must act in ‘good faith’ may also allow the imposition of secular notions of reasonableness.  The solution is to ensure an individual’s genuinely held beliefs MUST be protected (a major hallmark of a mature and plural society).
  1. The current draft bills DO NOT provide maximum protection to health practitioners who seek to exercise conscientious objections and they DO NOT provide protections to faith-based health institutions.  Conscientious protection offered to a limited number of health practitioners is insufficient.  The solution is to ensure health practitioners and faith-based health institutions MUST be protected to exercise conscientious objections’ https://mailchi.mp/1f1752e00177/religious-discrimination-2nd-draft-exposure-bill-more-work-needed?e=63ff15b667

The Climate Scam, Taxes & You

Posted by whatyareckon on January 15, 2020
Posted in: Climate, Common Sense, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Genesis 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

Most of us want clean air, clean drinkable water and a rubbish free environment. However, what the climate scammers are pushing really has nothing to do with any of the three. The climate scammers want to restrict our living standards and tax us for the privilege of living a lifestyle technology has provided so far. The climate scammers want to replace God the Creator.

Drought and famines have occurred on this earth for millenniums. Here are some Scriptures showing such.

Genesis 12:10 And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.

Genesis 26:1 And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar.

Genesis 41:56, 57 And the famine was over all the face of the earth: And Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. 57 And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands.

1Kings 17:7 And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.

Famine is usually caused by the lack of rain so one should get the point by now that God is in control! This Climate Scam is all about doing away with God, more taxes, and more government intervention into the lives of the people. In the following video John MacKay speaks to that point. Even though this was a talk he gave in Scotland back in 2007 it is as relevant today as it was then.

Can ‘WHITENESS STUDIES’ be Racist?

Posted by whatyareckon on January 11, 2020
Posted in: Bible, Biology, Common Sense, Education, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

‘Racial literacies vs white supremacy – educating and researching together against racial silencing, racial violence and racial capitalism’ https://acrawsa.org.au/2019/10/27/racial-literacies-vs-white-supremacy-educating-and-researching-together-against-racial-silencing-racial-violence-and-racial-capitalism/

The following is an old but very relevant article from the Front Page Magazine August, 2016.

‘When a pair of black separatists recently murdered five police officers in Dallas and three others in Baton Rouge, they were aiming, by their own proclamation, to carry out righteous retribution against an American society which they deplored because of its deep-seated “white skin privilege,” a concept first popularized by Bill Ayers and his fellow Weatherman radicals who, in the early ‘70s, aimed to foment a violent race war against a supposedly Klan-like “Amerikkka.” Although their terrorist tactics and aspirations made the Weathermen a fringe group, their views on race proved, over time, to have legs. The notion of white skin privilege became an article of faith among progressives, accounting for everything that was racially wrong in America, beginning with its constitutional framework.

Even those liberals who initially resisted the concept of white skin privilege as a slander against a noble country that had just gone through an unprecedented civil-rights revolution, eventually embraced it to explain why racial disparities persisted even as overt racists vanished from public life and institutional barriers were toppled. Civil-rights professionals, meanwhile, were faced with yet another problem: how to remain relevant and prominent in an era when white racism was being dismantled and delegitimized in a manner never before seen in human history.

The common solution to these dilemmas was to depict the nebulous concept of “white skin privilege” as a thread woven so deeply into the fabric of American culture, that it could never be fully extracted; to claim that whites, no matter how earnest or well-intentioned, would never be able to truly shed the racism that infected their hearts. In other words, to claim that real racial healing could never occur, even in a thousand years, because whites, by definition and DNA, would remain racists, even if unwittingly, until the end of time.

Out of this mindset grew the academic field of Whiteness Studies—a.k.a. Critical Whiteness Studies—which first made its way onto college campuses in the early 1990s. And from its inception, this discipline bore no resemblance whatsoever to other group-identity-based curricula like Black Studies, Chicano Studies, and Women’s Studies. Whereas those fields steadfastly celebrated their respective groups and emphasized their status as innocent victims of societal oppression, Whiteness Studies depicted whites uniformly as malevolent oppressors of people with darker complexions. They weren’t Italians, or Brits, or Poles, or Germans—they were just depraved white miscreants, best known for their many crimes against humanity. As Jeff Hitchcock, the co-founder and executive director of the Center for the Study of White American Culture, said in 1998 at the Third National Conference on Whiteness: “There is plenty to blame whiteness for. There is no crime that whiteness has not committed against people of color. There is no crime that we have not committed even against ourselves…. We must blame whiteness for the continuing patterns today that deny the rights of those outside of whiteness and which damage and pervert the humanity of those of us within it.”

And absolutely nothing has changed in the field of Whiteness Studies in the years since then. Last fall, for instance, University of Colorado associate professor Amy Wilkins candidly explained that her Whiteness Studies class was in essence “an advanced course on racial inequality.”

The_ Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education_ describes Whiteness Studies as “a growing body of scholarship whose aim is to reveal the invisible structures that produce and reproduce white supremacy and privilege.” Central to this definition is the notion that the average white person is largely unaware of his own racism, and that he must be helped to overcome the dreaded “ignorance of one’s ignorance” which prevents him from even recognizing “racism as a system of privilege” that benefits him at the expense of others.

The writings of feminist Peggy McIntosh are renowned in the field of Whiteness Studies, where professors and course readings often make reference to her famous metaphor of white skin privilege as an “invisible knapsack of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious.”

Whiteness Studies professor Lee Bebout of Arizona State University, for his part, says that “white supremacy makes it so that white people can’t see the world they have created.”

Not long ago, the University of Wisconsin–Superior sponsored an “Unfair Campaign” whose slogan—“It’s hard to see racism when you’re White”—was promoted aggressively via billboards, online videos, and posters. One poster showed a group of white students with the words “Is white skin really a fair skin?” written on their faces.

University of Wisconsin English professor Dr. Gregory Jay informs us that “Whiteness Studies is an attempt to think critically about how white skin preference has operated systematically, structurally, and sometimes unconsciously as a dominant force in American—and indeed in global—society and culture.” Moreover, he contends that telling white people that they’re racists whether or not they realize it, will ultimately foster interracial harmony: “I believe that Whiteness Studies must be part of the general effort to eradicate prejudice, bigotry, discrimination, and racism.”

With similar detachment from reality, Portland Community College claims that its annual “White History Month” initiative condemning the many evils of “whiteness” will help to “change our campus climate” for the better.

At Scripps College in Claremont, California, all incoming students receive a “survival guide” designed to alert the newcomers to the racism lurking quietly in the dark corners of white people’s hearts. One entry in this manual, titled “Dear White Students,” declares that “we as white students, must identify the ways that we are engaging in the perpetuation of white supremacy and work to unlearn our racism”; that racism is often manifested in “subtle ways through language” and “the perpetuation of white supremacist values like perfectionism [and] individualism”; that “reverse racism does not exist because there are no institutions that were founded with the intention of discriminating against white people on the basis of their skin”; that the “anger” of nonwhites “is a legitimate response to oppression, as is … a general distaste or hatred of white people”; that “we [whites] do not get to dictate how people of color respond to racism, nor do we get to delegitimize reactions that make us uncomfortable”; and that “our comfort is not more important than the safety of our peers of color.”

In other words, white students are advised to metaphorically lie down, belly-up, in contrite supplication, and to hold that pose for the remainder of their lives.

The common themes that run through all of the aforementioned programs and courses are Universal White Guilt on the one hand, and Universal Black Innocence on the other—flip sides of the same racialist coin. More than that, they are the twin centerpieces of the leftist mindset which aims to pit various groups of people against one another by dividing them neatly into oppressors and oppressed, victimizers and victims, evil and good. This tribal mentality, which sees human beings as members of mutually hostile groups rather than as individuals, is as contrary to the American ideal of individual rights and liberty as any mentality that has ever existed.

Moreover, it’s precisely this same tribalism which is promoted endlessly by the grievance mongers who constitute the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement that inspired the gunmen who recently murdered those eight police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. And the college classroom—the very place where young people are routinely indoctrinated with the type of racist rhetoric that pervades the field of Whiteness Studies (as well as Black Studies, for that matter)—is where this tribalism is most likely to find minds that are receptive to it. As the _Washington Post_ puts it, BLM’s “strongest foothold may now be … the American university.” Given these sobering facts, a legitimate case can be made for the idea that much of the trillion-plus dollars in student-loan debt that young people have racked up, has been money that was entirely wasted.’ https://archives.frontpagemag.com/fpm/ugly-racism-whiteness-studies-programs-john-perazzo/

A Blow to LGBT Movement when the First Trans Person to Obtain Legal ‘Non-Binary’ Sex Status Changes Back to Birth Sex

Posted by whatyareckon on January 3, 2020
Posted in: Transgender, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

You won’t read this in the mainline news for it doesn’t fit their narrative. Here it is; ‘This month the first person to obtain a legal “non-binary” sex designation has successfully petitioned the court originally responsible for his “non-binary” status to order that the sex on his birth certificate be restored to “male.” In documents exclusively provided to PJ Media, James Shupe’s petition described his “non-binary” designation as a James Shupe trangendermail“psychologically harmful legal fiction.” He told PJ Media he hopes this decision will prevent a woman currently seeking “non-binary” recognition from following the same lies.

“The charade of not being male, the legal fiction, it’s over,” James Shupe told PJ Media on Tuesday. “The lies behind my fictitious sex changes, something I shamefully participated in, first to female, and then to non-binary, have been forever exposed. A truthful accounting of events has replaced the deceit that allowed me to become America’s first legally non-binary person.”

“The legal record has now been corrected and LGBT advocates are no longer able to use my historic non-binary court order to advance their toxic agenda,” he added. “I am and have always been male. That is my biological truth, the only thing capable of grounding me to reality.”

While he became a hero for the transgender movement, Shupe now aims to dispel the lies of gender identity and reverse the harm caused by the precedent of his “non-binary” legal designation.

He referenced the case of Jones David Hollister, a woman who identifies as non-binary and is currently fighting to change her legal designation to non-binary. Hollister’s brief to the Oregon Court of Appeals cites Shupe’s case.

“I hope that Hollister and all the others are denied the right to change their sex to non-binary because it’s fraud and legal fiction based on pseudoscience,” Shupe said. “I was indoctrinated to believe that I had this thing called a gender identity and that suppressing it was causing my mental health problems. It was all a lie.”‘

‘Shupe went public about his detransition in an interview with PJ Media’s Bruce Bawer earlier this year after he asked for his official Florida documents to restore his legal sex to male.’ The whole article may be read at https://pjmedia.com/trending/ex-trans-man-reverses-non-binary-sex-designation-in-blow-to-lgbt-movement/

When God laughs

Posted by whatyareckon on December 10, 2019
Posted in: Christianity, Climate, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Psalm 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

The climate scammers have entered almost every area of our lives including what we eat! For instance,

  • ‘Hormel, Kellogg’s, and Kroger are among the large companies now planning to offer “fake meat” products at grocery stores.
  • Experts say the trend toward plant-based meats coincides with consumers’ desires to eat less meat.
  • However, experts urge consumers to closely check package labels as a product isn’t necessarily healthy just because it’s described as plant-based.

In grocery stores and fast-food outlets around the U.S., a revolution is taking place.’

‘Traditional competitors are taking note.

Tyson Foods, well known for its chicken products, has introduced a new range of plant-based nuggets. Earlier this month, it also announced a new venture to create plant-based shellfish. The company hopes to create a plant-based alternative to shrimp by 2020.

This fall, Kroger will be launching its own line of plant-based meats to appear alongside regular meats in stores.

Morningstar Farms, owned by Kellogg’s, is also introducing a range of realistic plant-based meats under the name “Incogmeato.”

Last week, Hormel Foods, famous for its Spam products, introduced a line of meat substitutes called Happy Little Plants.’ https://www.ecowatch.com/hormel-kelloggs-plant-based-meat-business-2640365173.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1

These companies are going Woke so don’t be surprised if they go BROKE! Now, all this seeking to change the climate is anti-God and anti-Bible. In Acts 11:5-9 we read that Peter …was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a trance I saw a vision, A certain vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came even to me: 6 Upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes, I considered, and saw fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. 7 And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay and eat. 8 But I said, Not so, Lord: for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth. 9 But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.

This doesn’t mean one has to eat meat but God doesn’t prohibit us from eating meat. That’s the point. Enjoy your steak and veggies.  steak-1445122_960_720

 

Have we had the Freedom of Speech too Long?

Posted by whatyareckon on October 25, 2019
Posted in: Free Speech, Freedom, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Have we enjoyed the benefits of true freedom so long that we no longer appreciate them? This is hard to believe but ‘A majority of Americans believe the First Amendment street preaching and free speech editedshould be rewritten and are willing to crack down on free speech, as well as the press, according to a new poll.

More than 60 percent of Americans agree on restricting speech in some way, while a slim majority, 51 percent, want to see the First Amendment rewritten to “reflect the cultural norms of today.” The Campaign for Free Speech, which conducted the survey, said the results “indicate free speech is under more threat than previously believed.”

“The findings are frankly extraordinary,” executive director Bob Lystad told the Washington Free Beacon. “Our free speech rights and our free press rights have evolved well over 200 years, and people now seem to be rethinking them.”

Of the 1,004 respondents, young people were the most likely to support curbing free expression and punishing those who engage in “hate speech.” Nearly 60 percent of Millennials—respondents between the ages of 21 and 38—agreed that the Constitution “goes too far in allowing hate speech in modern America” and should be rewritten, compared to 48 percent of Gen Xers and 47 percent of Baby Boomers. A majority of Millennials also supported laws that would make “hate speech” a crime—of those supporters, 54 percent said violators should face jail time.

American hostility to the First Amendment did not stop at speech. Many would also like to see a crackdown on the free press. Nearly 60 percent of respondents agreed that the “government should be able to take action against newspapers and TV stations that publish content that is biased, inflammatory, or false.” Of those respondents, 46 percent supported possible jail time.

The poll was released just two days after two University of Connecticut students were arrested for allegedly saying racial slurs in a viral video. The 21-year-old suspects were allegedly playing “a game in which they yelled vulgar words,” according to the police report. Lystad said such incidents and the rise of social media may be behind the increased willingness of Americans to curb speech rights.

“I think [our findings] are fueled in large part because of a rise of hate speech, but traditionally, hate speech is protected in the First Amendment,” Lystad said. “The Supreme Court has upheld that principle time and time again.”

Lystad launched the Campaign for Free Speech to advocate for preserving free and open dialogue in America. The group emphasizes that hate speech should be denounced, but does not think censorship is the answer. The group plans to push back against efforts to restrict speech at the local, state, and federal levels.

“Hate speech should be condemned, but legally, the answer to speech we don’t like is more speech, not censorship,” he said. “Our primary focus is education, and to help people better understand the First Amendment, free speech, free press, and why it’s so vital to our democracy.”‘ https://freebeacon.com/issues/poll-majority-of-americans-want-first-amendment-rewritten/

The University of Iowa, Greta Thunberg & the New Religion of Climate Change

Posted by whatyareckon on October 23, 2019
Posted in: Climate, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Climate change is the new religion that has drawn millions of followers into its clutches. Sadly, it seems, my home state of Iowa has many of these converts as seen in the thousands that recently gathered to hear Sweden’s Greta Thunberg in early October.

‘HOW DARE YOU!’ Those are the words of the climate messiah and drama queen Greta Thunberg when she spoke to the UN. In spite of Greta having zero science qualifications University of Iowa ‘Engineering professor Michelle SchererUofIowa Professor scherer_michelle had emailed her colleagues “If we haven’t already, I’d like to suggest we put Greta’s visit up on (Civil and Environmental Engineering) Facebook.”

Fortunately, the ‘…faculty at the University of Iowa were informed by the school not to promote a visit to the state by teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg.’ Nevertheless, professor Scherer believed a visit by school truant Thunberg ‘…is “exactly the type” of opportunity the UI community should be using “to compel” action on climate change.’ https://www.thecollegefix.com/university-of-iowa-informs-faculty-dont-promote-visit-by-climate-activist-greta-thunberg/

With governments and the UN bowing down to Greta and this new religion what John the Apostle wrote in Revelation 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name just might be less than a decade away!

 

 

 

Believe it or not; A British court rules belief in Bible is “incompatible with human dignity”

Posted by whatyareckon on October 5, 2019
Posted in: Christianity, Gender, UK, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Sometimes it doesn’t take much to get a little irritated, does it? The weather bureau said no rain for at least the next 6 days so we put our faith in the weather person and applied the first coat of three coats of sealer on our deck yesterday.  Well, the climate scammers spout they can guarantee what the climate will be in ten or so years if society doesn’t do certain things BUT the weather bureau cannot tell us with 80 to 95% accuracy the weather for the next two days! Unbelievable! Well, it rained the day after we put the first coat of sealer on so we are now waiting for that dry day to apply the second coat of sealer. THANKS weather bureau.

Now, that I have that off my chest the real purpose for today’s blog is the story below. It is Unbelievable; or is it? The Western world has gone crazy with this gender bending hysteria. Here’s the story out of the UK.

‘A Christian doctor who refused to refer to a biological man as a woman has lost his court case, with a British court ruling that belief in the Bible is “incompatible with human dignity.”

Dr David Mackereth, a doctor with over two decades experience with the National Dr David MackerethHealth Service, was dismissed by the Department for Work and Pensions on the grounds that refusing to call a patient by their preferred pronoun was “harassment” under the UK’s Equality Act.

Dr Mackareth has previously said that “Christians must be able to hold and express their faith in private and public and to uphold Biblical and scientific truths without fear of losing their livelihoods”.

But a British court ruled against the doctor.

“Belief in Genesis 1:27, lack of belief in transgenderism and conscientious objection to transgenderism in our judgment are incompatible with human dignity and conflict with the fundamental rights of others, specifically here, transgender individuals”, said the court.

The court went on to say that “in so far as those beliefs form part of his wider faith, his wider faith also does not satisfy the requirement of being worthy of respect in a democratic society, not incompatible with human dignity and not in conflict with the fundamental rights of others.”

Dr Mackarth said he was not alone in being disturbed by the court’s decision.

“Staff in the NHS, even those who do not share my Christian convictions, are also disturbed as they see their own freedom of thought and speech being undermined by the judges’ ruling.

“No doctor, or researcher, or philosopher, can demonstrate or prove that a person can change sex.

“Without intellectual and moral integrity, medicine cannot function and my 30 years as a doctor are now considered irrelevant compared to the risk that someone else might be offended”, he added.

Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said that “it is deeply disturbing that this is the first time in the history of English law that a judge has ruled that free citizens must engage in compelled speech”.

Dr Mackereth says he will appeal the decision.

“I believe that I have to appeal in order to fight for the freedom of Christians – and any other NHS member of staff – to speak the truth.

“If they cannot, then freedom of speech has died in this country, with serious ramifications for the practice of medicine in the UK,” he said.’ https://familyvoice.org.au/news/british-court-rules-belief-in-bible-is-incompatible-with-human-dignity

That story of Dr. Mackereth is going to be repeated here in Australia. A few years ago the Australian public voted in favour of same sex marriage. Today, the Federal government is seeking to work out a so-called Religious Discrimination Bill! Watch this space!!

Homo erectus: The Ape Man That Wasn’t

Posted by whatyareckon on October 2, 2019
Posted in: Creation, Evolution, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Scientists that are Christians and Biblical creationists have a habit of making some evolutionists really mad. One person in replying to one of my videos said ‘If you can’t understand that you are attempting to disprove something you have concocted in  your own mind, and which has NOTHING to do with evolution, then there is no  further point to me wasting my time on you. I am not a psychologist and I have no interest in addressing an obvious psychological defect.’ Hmm, I wonder what they would make of the following article?

‘The archaic human species Homo erectus has been portrayed as an important ape-to-man transitional link. However, these fossils don’t provide any real evidence of evolution. Many paleontologists and a majority of creationists think their unusual features are nothing more than variants of human traits and not transitional at all. Even more, some of them have been found in remote isolated island locations far from Africa and dated by secular calculations at up to 1.9 million years old. This completely derails the evolutionary story that humans migrated out of Africa just a few hundred thousand years ago. A biblical model of human origins provides a much better fit for the data.

How Homo erectus  Got Going

Java Man Homo erectus
Image credit: Stuart Humphreys. Copyright © Australian Museum. Used in accordance with federal copyright (fair use doctrine) law. Usage by ICR does not imply endorsement of copyright holder.

 

The first Homo erectus finds were given the names Java Man and Peking Man.1,2 Eugène Dubois, a Dutch medical doctor and anatomist, made his famous discovery in 1891 on the island of Java and originally called it Pithecanthropus erectus. His Java Man consisted of just a skullcap, a thigh bone, and a molar tooth found separately in the same layer of volcanic ash. In fact, the skull and thigh bone were about 50 feet apart, but Dubois concluded they belonged to the same individual. An ardent evolutionist and Darwin fan, he immediately claimed he’d found a transitional form. His argument was based primarily on the skullcap’s pronounced brow ridge and size. It was smaller than the average modern human but still well within the known variation for humans. The thigh bone was identical to modern humans.

Specimens of Peking Man, also known as Homo erectus pekinensis (formerly Sinanthropus pekinensis), were discovered between 1923 and 1937 during excavations near Beijing.1,2 These fossils have been given evolutionary dates ranging from 680,000 to 780,000 years old.3,4 The sum fossil total from this work includes six nearly complete crania, 15 partial crania, 11 mandibles (jaws), many teeth, some skeletal bones, and a large number of stone tools.1,2 Modern human fossils were also found in an upper cave at the same site in 1933.

Turkana Boy Homo erectus
Image credit: Claire Houck. Used in accordance with federal copyright (fair use doctrine) law. Usage by ICR does not imply endorsement of copyright holder.

 

After these initial discoveries in Asia, similar fossil skulls were found throughout eastern Africa. First promoted under the name Homo ergaster, it’s now widely accepted that H. ergaster is the African form of H. erectus. The most complete H. erectus fossil was discovered in 1984 near Lake Turkana in Kenya.5 Known as Turkana Boy, this fossil’s skull features were similar to H. erectus, but its body was essentially identical to modern humans. Most researchers now agree the skeleton was from a juvenile of about 10 to 12 years of age who would have achieved a normal human height of close to six feet at maturity. The generally accepted evolutionary age of this fossil is about 1.6 million years—slightly younger than the Java Man fossils.

The other major group of H. erectus fossils was discovered between 1991 and 2005 in archaeological excavations near the city of Dmanisi, Georgia, northwest of Turkey and situated between the Black and Caspian Seas. According to evolutionary dating, the five crania and four mandibles are about 1.8 million years old.2,6 Although the fossils have been placed in the H. erectus category, the extreme size and shape variation of the skulls has caused controversy. In fact, evolutionists note that due to this variability, if the skulls hadn’t been found close to one another and in the same rock layer, they would have been placed in different species categories. Several of the skulls look as though there may have been some sort of disease pathology at work.

What Makes a Homo erectus  a Homo erectus?

The entire story of H. erectus is essentially built on about 300 very fragmentary fossils. The majority of these are nothing more than partial skulls, teeth, and broken bones. The only nearly complete H. erectus fossil is Turkana Boy, whose post-cranial skeleton was found to be nearly identical to modern humans.

Based on the diverse skull fragments and a few nearly complete crania, the defining features of H. erectus are a prominent brow ridge, a sloping forehead, reduced chin, more constricted temples than typical humans, larger teeth, forward-projecting jaw (prognathism), and cranial capacities on the lower end of the normal human-size spectrum.2 In fact, one could say that H. erectus skulls are shaped similarly to Neanderthal craniums except that instead of being larger compared to modern humans, their heads were on average generally smaller. However, H. erectus cranial volume is still within the same range as modern humans. Research has shown that, in general, human or animal intelligence is not based on brain size but on creature-specific organizational properties.2

Recent Homo erectus in Australia and China?

Kow Swamp Homo erectus
Image credit: Ryan Somma. Used in accordance with federal copyright (fair use doctrine) law. Usage by ICR does not imply endorsement of copyright holder.

 

In 1972, the fossil remains of about 50 Aboriginal humans were discovered at a burial site in the Kow Swamp region of Northern Victoria, Australia.2,7 The researchers who reported the discovery described a distinct set of so-called archaic human traits “not seen in recent Aboriginal crania” that closely paralleled the traits of classic H. erectus. These included prominent brow ridges, sloping foreheads, prognathism, large teeth, and a minimal chin. But most importantly, along with the reported “archaic” features, the researchers claimed a very recent date by evolutionary standards for these fossils. The scientists in the report stated, “Analysis of the cranial morphology of more than thirty individuals reveals the survival of Homo erectus  features in Australia until as recently as 10,000 years ago.”7

In a 2006 finding in Mongolia, researchers reported a skullcap whose “analysis shows similarities with Neanderthals, Chinese Homo erectus, and West/Far East archaic Homo sapiens.”8 Just like the Kow Swamp fossils, the evolutionary dates don’t fall within the range of typical H. erectus. The most recent study of the Mongolian fossil now lists it at about 34,000 years old—a time considered very recent in the human evolutionary spectrum and on par with the Kow Swamp fossils.

The problem with both of these fossil discoveries is that evolutionarily speaking they have been put in the same age range as very recent anatomically modern humans. Had they been dated at one to two million years, they would have been considered bona fide H. erectus because they would then fit the evolutionary narrative. As things stand, they are considered mere anomalies to be swept under the rug to maintain the evolutionary myth that so-called archaic human traits disappeared long ago.

Archaic Traits Are Still Alive and Well

Secular scientists have discovered a human skull from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, defined as having “anatomically modern” features and dated at over 300,000 years old.9 This, combined with the fact of very “recent” humans with archaic features (the Kow Swamp and Mongolian fossils), highlights severe inconsistencies in the human evolution story.

If one wants to accept the evolutionary timeline, then H. erectus-like humans with archaic features and humans with anatomically modern features have hung out together on Earth for a long time, even up to the very recent past. But it gets even worse for the evolutionary picture because so-called archaic traits like prominent brow ridges, sloping foreheads, prognathism, and small craniums can still be found in living humans.10

Advanced Culture and Behavior of Homo erectus

Not only is there strong anatomical evidence that H. erectus fossils are just a variant of the human kind, there is also copious archaeological evidence that they were highly intelligent and exhibited a broad range of human behaviors. The condensed list below is based on an extensive scientific literature survey published in 2017.2

  • Watercraft construction and seafaring navigation
  • Language and communication skills
  • Jewelry manufacture
  • Cordage and knot-making
  • Manufacture and use of stone and bone tools
  • Controlled usage of fire and cooking
  • Catching and processing fish
  • Development of organized living and occupational spaces
  • Art (petroglyphs, figurines, red ochre paint)
  • Woodworking
  • Coordinated large-game hunting and processing
  • Development of clothing from animal skins
  • Development of fibers and resins
  • Social and family structure
  • Care for the elderly and weak

Homo erectus  and the Out-of-Africa Myth

The H. erectus fossil presence in China and southeast Asia, particularly on remote islands like Java, causes major problems for the reigning human evolutionary migration paradigm. First of all, it’s obvious that intelligent seafaring humans made the journey over long stretches of open ocean to reach these islands. And if we accept the deep-time dating of H. erectus at up to two million years in remote places like this, then there are severe evolutionary time frame discrepancies.

For one thing, the supposed initial phase of human evolution is represented by the ape-like Australopithecus, which overlaps significantly in time with H. erectus. If they coexisted, how could one have been the evolutionary predecessor of the other? Even worse is the problem it presents for the current out-of-Africa model. This model proposes that humans migrated from Africa only about 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. But if that is the case, then how could they have existed on remote southeast Asian islands two million years before that?

Homo erectus Was Human After All

Not only is the H. erectus fossil record fragmentary and incomplete, but the bulk of the data indicates this category is simply a variant of the human kind. As mentioned above, so-called archaic H. erectus traits can still be found in humans today. Even many evolutionists recognize this. A recent article stated, “If you bumped into a Homo erectus in the street you might not recognise [sic] them as being very different from you.”11

So, if H. erectus was fully human and the evolutionary narratives and timelines don’t make sense even within a secular worldview, how does this fit with the Bible? First of all, the Scriptures are quite clear that God created an ancestral human couple uniquely in His image on the sixth day of the creation week. We also know that death, sin, and corruption entered the picture when Adam and Eve rebelled (Genesis 3). As the human population grew, people became so wicked that God destroyed the world in a global flood. It’s possible that some of the H. erectus fossils may have been humans buried in the highest sedimentary layers of Flood rock, exactly where we would expect them.

Alternatively, some H. erectus fossils may have been from specific people groups that dispersed from the Tower of Babel after the Flood. The Kow Swamp burial site would be a good example. When human languages were confused at Babel, the resulting isolated groups would have led to a large number of genetic bottlenecks and lineages of humans with unique suites of trait variations such as skin color, skeletal sizes, and skull shape variations. Some creation scientists also speculate that genetic abnormalities would have surfaced more rapidly in small, isolated, inbred populations, which may explain some of the unusual variations seen in H. erectus skulls.2

Clearly, the biblical account of human creation and Earth history offers a much more satisfying framework in which to place human fossil discoveries than the scientifically flawed evolutionary narrative.

References

  1. Lubenow, M. 2004. Bones of Contention. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
  2. Rupe, C. and J. Sanford. 2017. Contested Bones. Waterloo, NY: FMS Publications.
  3. Shen, G. et al. 2009. Age of Zhoukoudian Homo erectus determined with 26Al/10Be burial dating. Nature. 458: 198-200.
  4. Devièse, T. et al. 2019. Compound-specific radiocarbon dating and mitochondrial DNA analysis of the Pleistocene hominin from Salkhit Mongolia. Nature Communications. 10: 274.
  5. Brown, F. et al. 1985. Early Homo erectus skeleton from west Lake Turkana, Kenya. Nature. 316 (6031): 788-792.
  6. Schwartz, J. H., I. Tattersall, and Z. Chi. 2014. Comment on “A Complete Skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the Evolutionary Biology of Early Homo.” Science. 344 (6182): 360.
  7. Thorne, A. G. and P. G. Macumber. 1972. Discoveries of Late Pleistocene Man at Kow Swamp, Australia. Nature. 238: 316-319.
  8. Coppens, Y. et al. 2008. Discovery of an archaic Homo sapiens skullcap in Northeast Mongolia. Comptes Rendus Palevol. 7 (1): 51-60.
  9. Hublin, J.-J. et al. 2017. New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens. Nature. 546: 289-292.
  10. Tomkins, J. P. 2019. Recent Humans with Archaic Features Upend Evolution. Acts & Facts. 48 (4): 15.
  11. Moffat, I. A snapshot of our mysterious ancestor Homo erectus. Phys.org. Posted January 29, 2019, accessed August 12, 2019.’ https://www.icr.org/article/11538