President
Bush Commemorates National Day of Prayer
Since the days of our founding, our nation has been called
to prayer. That's exactly what our first President did, George Washington. "It's
the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to
obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and to humbly implore his
protection and favor." It's interesting that the first President said
those words. For two centuries, Americans have answered this call to prayer.
We're a prayerful nation. I believe that makes us a strong nation. Each
day, millions of our citizens approach our Maker. We pray as congregations
in churches and in synagogues, and mosques, and in temples. We welcome people
of all faiths into the United States of America. We pray as families, around
the dinner table, and before we go to sleep. We pray alone in silence and
solitude, withdrawing from the world to focus on the eternal, spending time
in personal recollection with our Creator. We pray for many reasons. First,
we pray to give thanks for the blessings the Almighty has bestowed upon
us. We pray to give thanks. We give thanks for our freedom. We give thanks
for the brave men and women who risk their lives to defend it. We give thanks
for our families who love and support us. We give thanks for our plenty.
We give thanks for our nation. Second, we pray for the strength to follow
God's will in our lives, and for forgiveness when we fail to do so. Through
prayer, each of us is reminded that we are fallen creatures in need of mercy,
and in seeking the mercy and compassion of a loving God, we grow in mercy
and compassion ourselves. We feel the tug at our souls to reach out to the
poor, the elderly, the stranger in distress. And by answering this call
to care for our brothers and sisters in need, our hearts grow larger and
we enter into a deeper relationship with God. Third, we pray to acknowledge
God's sovereignty in our lives and our complete dependence on Him. This
is probably the toughest prayer of all, particularly for those of us in
politics. In the humility of prayer we recognize the limits of human strength
and human wisdom. We seek the strength and wisdom that comes from above.
We ask for the grace to align our hearts with His, echoing the words of
Scripture, "Not my will, but thine be done." We ask the Almighty
to remain near to us and guide us in all we do, and when He is near we are
ready for all that may come to us. Finally, we pray to offer petitions,
because our Father in heaven knows our cares and our needs. We trust in
the promise of a loving God: Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and
ye shall find. Inspired by this confidence we pray that the Almighty will
pour out His blessings on those we love. We ask His healing for those who
suffer from illness, for those who struggle in life. We ask His comfort
for the victims of tragedy, and that the injured may be healed and the fallen
may find comfort in the arms of their Creator. We implore His protection
for those who protect us here at home and in far away lands. We pray for
the day when His peace will reign in every nation and in every land until
the ends of the earth. The greatest gift we can offer anyone is the gift
of our prayers, because our prayers have power beyond our imagining. The
English poet Tennyson wrote, "More things are wrought by prayer than
this world dreams of." Prayer has the power to change lives and to
change the course of history. So on this National Day of Prayer, let us
seek the Almighty with confidence and trust, because our Eternal Father
inclines his ear to the voice of his children, and answers our needs with
love...
Text of U.S. President George Bush’s speech (dated May 3, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (US/RE/MO)
How
Not to Teach Children About Sex
British authorities promote sex education programmes that
would make a sailor blush - and achieve record rates of disease and pregnancy…
From British journalist William Keenan (dated April 4, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (BR/MO)
The
Trouble With Islam
Sadly, mainstream Muslim teaching accepts and promotes violence…
From former Islamist terror group member and Muslim reformer Dr. Tawfik
Hamid (dated April 3, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (RE/WT)
Let the Evidence Speak
In a recent Archaeological Views column [in Biblical Archaeology
Review (BAR)], Michael Coogan counseled readers to question authority.
He said we should “beware of an argument based on ‘authority.’” While I heartily agree with Coogan, I believe there are other examples of unscientific methodology being practiced in the fields of Palestinian archaeology and Biblical studies that are just as insidious. As one schooled in the scientific method, it disturbs me that, in addition to the say-so of esteemed authority figures, many times opinions are driven by preconceived notions, received knowledge (e.g., my professor told me such-and-such in graduate school), arguments from silence (thus-and-so has not been found to support a biblical statement—i.e., the Bible is guilty until proven innocent) or majority opinion. In an objective, scientific inquiry, conclusions must be based on evidence, and evidence alone. Take the matter of the historical accuracy of the Hebrew Bible. Most scholars are of the opinion that biblical history prior to the monarchy is myth and fable. This attitude is reflected in Views columns. Hendel stated, “Archaeological research has…secured the non-historicity of much of the Bible before the era of the kings.” Dever remarked, “there was no military conquest of Canaan.” Coogan
expressed a similar view with regard to the conquest of Jericho, which
I shall comment on below. How can we check the veracity of this supposition?
If we are honest researchers using sound methodological principles,
we need to examine the evidence, much of it documented in the pages
of BAR, to see if it agrees or disagrees with the proposed hypothesis.
Due to space limitations, we can consider but a few examples pertaining
to Joshua and Judges, proceeding from the end of the Judges period backward
in time…
Biblical Archaeology Review article from archaeologist Dr. Bryant Wood, reposted at Associates for Biblical Research (dated March 28, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/RE)
Cassini Images Bizarre Hexagon on Saturn
An odd, six-sided, honeycomb-shaped feature circling the entire north pole of Saturn has captured the interest of scientists with NASA's Cassini mission. NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft imaged the feature over two decades ago. The fact that it has appeared in Cassini images indicates that it is a long-lived feature. A second hexagon, significantly darker than the brighter historical feature, is also visible in the Cassini pictures…"This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides," said Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We've never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is"…
From Jet Propulsion Laboratory News Release (dated March 27, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (GI/ST)
The So-Called Jesus Family Tomb “Rediscovered” in Jerusalem
[There is a] new book by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino, entitled The Jesus Family Tomb…[accompanied by a] documentary…on the Discovery Channel called "The Lost Tomb of Jesus"…I said in the title of this article, the "rediscovery" of the so-called tomb of Jesus' family because in 1996, the BBC ran an Easter special called "Heart of the Matter: The Body In Question" on the resurrection of Jesus. In this documentary they claimed that the ossuaries of Joseph, Mary and Jesus were found in 1980 and were sitting in the basement of the Department of Antiquities in Jerusalem…Jacobovici acknowledges this BBC broadcast in their [new] book…Now he claims to have more information that was not available in 1996 to prove his case, and has a different interpretation of some of the ossuaries. In the Forward to the [new] book, James Cameron describes the research as being done with "systematic rigor"…and called it "brilliant scholarly research" with conclusions that were "virtually irrefutable," "compelling," and "extremely convincing"…Is this the case, or is Cameron overstating his case?...
From Gordon Franz at Associates for Biblical Research (dated March 17, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/RE)
The myth of Al Aqsa mosque
Presently, the Mullahs are calling for another "intifada" claiming that the Jews are undermining the Al Aksa Mosque and the place where their myths believe Mohammed launched himself into the Seventh Heaven. Where did this story come from? Does it meet any known time-line?...
From Middle East analyst Emanuel Winston at Israel Insider (dated February 13, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (ME/RE)
Teen Sex Leads to Depression and Drug Use
Researchers have long recognized that risky behavior and depression are linked for adolescents; prevailing theories assumed that depressed teens turned to drugs and sex for self-medication. Now there is solid evidence that teen girls who experiment with risky behaviors (i.e., sex and drugs) are more vulnerable to depression and that teen boys who engage in binge drinking and heavy marijuana use are prone to depression…
From Concerned Women for America think tank Beverly LaHaye Institute senior fellow Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse (dated January 30, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (US/MO)
Casual sex is a con: women just aren't like men
Former groupie Dawn Eden explains how she realised morality made more sense for women than free love…
From author Dawn Eden in The Times (London) (dated January 14, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (MO)
Religion of Peace?: Robert Spencer asks the hard questions
Islam is quintessentially tolerant…a “religion of peace.” This conventional wisdom brims over the mainstream media’s daily servings…But is it true? Emphatically, the answer is “no.” So argues best-selling author and Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer…Painstakingly, Spencer has crafted a biography Islam’s Prophet from the authentic Muslim Sunnah, comprised of [the Koran and other Muslim sources]… The picture that emerges is complex but not ambiguous…
From Foundation for the Defense of Democracies senior fellow Andrew McCarthy at National Review Online (dated January 11, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (GI/RE/WT)
It's the worldview, stupid
I believe the main animating difference between conservatism and liberalism is that the former believes in the Biblically revealed sinful condition of mankind. Our Constitution's framers established a system of government around their belief that man-operated government had to be limited and held in check in order for freedom to flourish. Liberalism generally embraces a secular humanist (or enlightenment) faith in the general goodness, perhaps even perfectibility of man. Conservatives accept that government exists as a necessary evil, to prevent anarchy, establish order and maximize but not absolutize freedom. Human beings within this context will be freer to minimize, but never completely solve society's problems. By contrast, liberals place their secular faith in government to wholly eradicate societal problems…
From columnist David Limbaugh at Townhall.com (dated January 5, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (US/RE/MO)
Is the E.U. America's Friend or Foe?
The reality is quite different. As this hugely ambitious but flawed project has taken shape, policy differences between Europe and the U.S. have both multiplied and deepened… The one statement that I predict you will not hear from a spokesman for the E.U. Commission in Brussels is: "We applaud American leadership, and we will back the U.S. all of the way." Indeed, we have now reached the point where E.U. policy gives every impression of having been defined in opposition to U.S. policy and where it is abundantly clear that the European aspiration is to be a rival, not a partner… The other horror is that, as EU competence increases, so the ability of member states to propose their own laws for their own people shrinks until it is extinguished. That is the ultimate goal of the ever-closer union: but it entails a stark and anti-democratic removal of sovereignty from this area which impacts directly on our most basic freedoms and liberties. Now all of this might strike you as being purely Europe's affair. But let me remind you that the principle that U.S. interests are most likely to be served by the extension of democracy wherever possible has been one of the foundations of U.S. foreign policy…But U.S. policymakers have been remarkably slow to grasp that the supranational institutions of the new top-down Europe (to which the once independent European states have ceded sovereignty) are remarkably undemocratic. In the judgment of a former E.U. commissioner, it is clear that if the E.U. applied to itself the criteria that it recently applied to all new members, it could not be admitted to the E.U. because it is insufficiently democratic!…The attempt to create an independent and integrated European defense capability—or what the French refer to as Defense Europe—has some extremely serious implications for the United States. Indeed, as matters stand now I doubt whether Britain will be an effective ally in 10 years time even if the British people want this…
From John Blundell, director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, London, at The Heritage Foundation (dated December 22, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (US/EU/WT)
FAQ - The Shiites and the Sunnis
1) Who are the Sunnis and the Shiites?...
From Dean Barnett at Townhall.com (dated December 12, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (GI/ME/RE)
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