Assuming the Southwest pilot did say this, apparently he broke a policy of the private company for which he works about voicing his politics to passengers in such a public way. You have to admit, this was a pretty stupid thing to do. What did he think was going to happen? I'm with you that the Woke are wrong to try to get this person fired. He probably deserves disciplinary action, the extent of which only the employer can determine. The opinions of the Woke should have no bearing.
I've not voiced my religious opinions very often here out of respect for you and the vast majority of your subscribers. But I'm going to have to make a exception in this case. I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church. From what I learned in Catechism and my own study the devil (Satan) is a creation of God, a spiritual being created by God that revolted against God. Now, putting aside the fact that the Abrahamic God is omniscient and KNEW before he created these beings and the universe that this revolt against God was going to happen; why would a rational spiritual being (ostensibly in a state of heavenly grace) revolt against his creator, a creator he KNOWS fully? He's not mortal, his belief in God is not based on faith. I've read the answers to these questions that a Google search can provide. They boil down to Satan and his revolt were part of God's plan for our salvation. So, God created these imperfect beings, why?
That is the harder question. Why, in the Abrahamic tradition did God create, knowing the suffering and pain it would bring to many if not most of the beings He claims to love? Even Aquinas and Augustine had trouble with these questions from what I recall. You know what, He could have left well enough alone and not bother with creation. I've asked this question many times from lay persons and clergy. Like Aquinas and Augustine, they struggle for an answer.
So, I have to believe that there is a God for lack of a better name that created or set into motion all that we see, have seen and will see. I just can't buy into the Abrahamic version. It's cruel.
Warning, a stream of thought masquerading as a rant follows: This nation's sense of humor is on life support. Who has the chutzpah to break out the paddles, amp up the charge, and yell, "Clear!" Dave Chappell? George Carlin would have. Bill Maher? Maybe! But what we really need to shock the body politic and culture out of this mirthless death march are believers; the sold-out, born again, fire baptized (lions, tigers and charismatics, oh my!), Jesus freaks. We (yep, I'm one of 'em) see all this wokeness crap for the temporary and light affliction it is. There are bigger fish to fry and the fight begins on our face before the only hope this nation and world has. Oh yes . . . His name is Jesus, and He is the Christ, the Son of the living God (I may get into trouble with some for not capitalizing 'name' and 'living'). Just how unsettled do people think the God of all creation really is with all this wokification?? He's building a kingdom, saving souls, changing lives for the better, and doing it all for . . . everyone! Wokes, Alt Right, Alt Left, Progressives, the Squad, Communists, Gentiles, Jews, Illegal Immigrants, Democrats, Republications, Libertarians, Late Night Hosts, the ladies on The View, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and yes, Hillary Clinton, too. A ministry friend a few years back had been working in a corner of a sub-Saharan African nation where real issues are their day-to-day norm (actual poverty, lack of clean water, lack of ANY healthcare solution, where a disease like cerebral malaria has a 20% mortality rate in adults and 15% in children). He returned to the U.S. after only three weeks away and the social media universe (dramatic over reach, that one) was all abuzz about something Justin Bieber may have or have not said, or may have or have not implied. My friend's response was decidedly in the normal range, "Are you frickin kidding me??" This nation of ours is drowning in its own self-obsession. The rest of the world, by comparison (not you Australia, your gov't has gone from cool to sucks in less than two years, ours is gaining) seems to be more in the normal range. We only need two words, and the bar is set really low, btw. Just two and if we can return to them, a lot of good and beneficial things will result. In the voice of Rod Serling, "Imagine if you will, a country once known for freedom and independence. But lately has taken to wallowing in something we might call, the Twilight Zone." Two words that will return colleges to bastions of ideas, Washington to a capitol no longer in need of chain-link fences as performance art, and hopefully rescue the Republic of Texas from the Bear Republic to its left (catch the nuance?). The words? Civil Discourse. A bridge too far? Maybe not. It's certainly worth praying for.
My grandmother used to fuss at me for saying dang, yet when she got mad she would say "oh foot!" Let's go Brandon is an innocuous way to express displeasure at the policies and failure of the current administration without using expletives and being crass. Also Eric, you can make fun of me for being unvaxxed (although I am on NO pharmaceuticals), and for beleiveing the election was stolen, though the machine theft is almost secondary to the mail in ballot, dead people and all the collective cheating that moved the needle. I saw it in my very red small town that has not voted for a Dem president in anyone's living memory, but where our Dem governor appointed our election commission which appointed our registrar who has used all sorts of trickery and broken many laws. Of course despite the strange lack of Biden signs and Trump all over town, we bizarrly went for Biden. Also my brother had his vote stolen. Never got the absentee ballot he requested, but found out he voted anyhoo. When cases are brought to attempt to rectify the situation, the dem judge promptly throws them out. As such, I saw on a small scale the same things being alleged in other localities and it was not my overactive imaginiation, though my imaginiation probably is overactive. No worries, though. I am cool with you thinking differently as you are my brother in Christ and I also have a son named Gunnar. When life is outpacing the Babylon Bee we should all embrace our senses of humor and work at not being offended.
The problem is quite simple. Each side is looking at the other as an evil enemy when flesh and blood is not the problem. Why is the right increasingly copying the very worst behavior of the left? Someone has to be the first to get off the merry-go-round. American Christians need to get on their face before God and emulate Christ, not the accuser. Please spare me a sermon about the overturned tables in the temple. The lesson there was to the religious leaders, NOT the government. If anything, too many American church leaders are political.
"Why is the right increasingly copying the very worst behavior of the left?" The reason is that the Left does not understand logic, reason, hypocrisy, grace, compromise or much of anything else that normal people do to resolve problems. For the Left it is winning at any cost. Look at it this way: Getting in the Left's faces now in the manner you seem to detest appears to be starting to work (Loudin County, Virginia Election, Vax pushback, Lets Go Brandon, etc. etc.) Shouting is always better than shooting. Always better. Trust me on that one.
Another group that can't stand to be mocked are the Trump myrmidons. FJB/Let's go Brandon is a direct hit to them because, as Christoper B pointed out below, it's grass roots, Trump didn't start it. That takes attention away from the Trump ego. They'll try to co-opt LGB to keep him relevant.
"The only major difference between Woke-o Haram and Islamic Jihadists is the former won’t kill you." Give 'em time. They've justified their reprehensible behavior to this point so I don't see it as a bridge too far to say the day will come that they justify that, too. How bitterly ironic that the people who scream "fascist" the loudest emulate its very definition almost to the letter except they are far left, not far right.
"Legion, upon departing the drowned pigs in Mark 5, got bored and started social media. Now it storms about looking for souls to devour."
This is one of the best written lines you have written--there have been others, this highlights your gift of "final word" and conclusion. Erick, this is beyond solid. An excellent analysis of our current situation. This will actually help me as I continue with my doctorate (from the same place you are getting yours).
Never apologize for being right. Never cease to attack Satan. I was amused at the comment, "You're better than this." Really? Specifically, were they referring to your directness at exposing the falsehood of action or is there version of reality itself different?
Absolutely. The wokes are unregenerate reprobates, depraved, corrupt, but not without purpose. I'm thankful you have a platform for your voice, and gifted worldview.
People also forget that Jesus said "Hell was not created for YOU! It was created by God, for Lucifer and his demon followers!" The REASON The Christ was sent was to save you from Satan, who WILL drag you to his hell with him. When Adam fell in the garden, he sentenced every human born to be handed over to Lucifer, and to be honest, the ONLY way out IS The Christ, the Holy Sacrifice that hides your sin from God, with his blood!
The Moloch worshipers who sacrifice their own children to Satan can be saved...as can the Pope who claims to represent The One!
Quit playing the devil's games, and realize that the tormentor of your soul does own you, but God HAS given you THEE Way Out! Accept His Sacrifice, that He paid to get you BACK from the permanent death! Biden serves the Chinese and is handing us over to them, FOR MAMON! (money)! He does not care for you, as is most of our representatives! Portland is the example of Biblical lawlessness! It's what Sodom looked like just before destruction by a Holy God!
WAKE UP! Satan hates ALL humanity, because God created you, and Lucifer only owns you if you let him!
Amen, and Amen, Erick! Peter Kreeft has written extensively on the matter of spiritual warfare, including in his How to Destroy Western Civilisation:
"Spiritual warfare is real. Wars on earth always reflect wars in Heaven. Life is jihad, holy war. Too many Muslims think the enemy is flesh and blood, and too many Christians think there is no enemy at all. The devils laugh at us both."
"A crucial example of our reversal of first and second things is the relation between truth and freedom. Freedom is for truth, not truth for freedom. Deny truth, and you destroy freedom. The truth makes you free; freedom does not make you true."
"Politics is not absolute. Politics is not religion. In the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, we are political about our religion and religious about our politics. That is our idolatry."
"Alexander Solzhenitsyn was exactly on target when, in his great Templeton Address of 1983, one of the greatest and most prophetic speeches in the history of Western civilization, when he diagnosed the ultimate cause of all the ills and decadences and self-destructivenesses of our culture of death in one simple sentence: “Men have forgotten God.” The sophisticates and intellectuals and chattering classes that heard that speech were outraged. They never forgave him. People will forgive you for being wrong, but they will never forgive you for being right."
Not quite sure what "you're better than this" means -- or what "you're better than this" means. Better than what? I also like the turn of phrase "graceless contempt." It describes it perfectly. There's a fine line between "turning the other cheek" and "putting on the armor of God."
__The Demons__ (1871-1872) is one of the 4 major novels of Dostoevsky. It is not known as well. as _Crime and Punishment_ or _The Brothers Karamazov_.
It begins with Luke 8:32–36..
__Demons__ is an allegory of the potentially catastrophic consequences of the political and moral nihilism that were becoming prevalent in Russia in the 1860s.
Dostoevsky wrote that "Communism will conquer one day, irrespective of whether the Communists are right or wrong. But this triumph will stand very far from the Kingdom of Heaven. All the same, we must accept that this triumph will come one day, even though none of those who at present steer the world's fate have any idea about it at all.
Luke 8:32–36.
(sometimes translators title this novel _The Possessed_ or, _The Devils_.)
I love everything about this, Erick! We ARE in the war of our lives for this country. AND, as Christians, we are to speak up according to God's word. You can like or dislike the Let's Go Brandon chant, but it doesn't change the fact that evil is afoot in this nation. Let's put on our armor and fight.
"Legion, upon departing the drowned pigs in Mark 5, got bored and started social media. Now it storms about looking for souls to devour."
Perfect.
Assuming the Southwest pilot did say this, apparently he broke a policy of the private company for which he works about voicing his politics to passengers in such a public way. You have to admit, this was a pretty stupid thing to do. What did he think was going to happen? I'm with you that the Woke are wrong to try to get this person fired. He probably deserves disciplinary action, the extent of which only the employer can determine. The opinions of the Woke should have no bearing.
I've not voiced my religious opinions very often here out of respect for you and the vast majority of your subscribers. But I'm going to have to make a exception in this case. I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church. From what I learned in Catechism and my own study the devil (Satan) is a creation of God, a spiritual being created by God that revolted against God. Now, putting aside the fact that the Abrahamic God is omniscient and KNEW before he created these beings and the universe that this revolt against God was going to happen; why would a rational spiritual being (ostensibly in a state of heavenly grace) revolt against his creator, a creator he KNOWS fully? He's not mortal, his belief in God is not based on faith. I've read the answers to these questions that a Google search can provide. They boil down to Satan and his revolt were part of God's plan for our salvation. So, God created these imperfect beings, why?
That is the harder question. Why, in the Abrahamic tradition did God create, knowing the suffering and pain it would bring to many if not most of the beings He claims to love? Even Aquinas and Augustine had trouble with these questions from what I recall. You know what, He could have left well enough alone and not bother with creation. I've asked this question many times from lay persons and clergy. Like Aquinas and Augustine, they struggle for an answer.
So, I have to believe that there is a God for lack of a better name that created or set into motion all that we see, have seen and will see. I just can't buy into the Abrahamic version. It's cruel.
Warning, a stream of thought masquerading as a rant follows: This nation's sense of humor is on life support. Who has the chutzpah to break out the paddles, amp up the charge, and yell, "Clear!" Dave Chappell? George Carlin would have. Bill Maher? Maybe! But what we really need to shock the body politic and culture out of this mirthless death march are believers; the sold-out, born again, fire baptized (lions, tigers and charismatics, oh my!), Jesus freaks. We (yep, I'm one of 'em) see all this wokeness crap for the temporary and light affliction it is. There are bigger fish to fry and the fight begins on our face before the only hope this nation and world has. Oh yes . . . His name is Jesus, and He is the Christ, the Son of the living God (I may get into trouble with some for not capitalizing 'name' and 'living'). Just how unsettled do people think the God of all creation really is with all this wokification?? He's building a kingdom, saving souls, changing lives for the better, and doing it all for . . . everyone! Wokes, Alt Right, Alt Left, Progressives, the Squad, Communists, Gentiles, Jews, Illegal Immigrants, Democrats, Republications, Libertarians, Late Night Hosts, the ladies on The View, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and yes, Hillary Clinton, too. A ministry friend a few years back had been working in a corner of a sub-Saharan African nation where real issues are their day-to-day norm (actual poverty, lack of clean water, lack of ANY healthcare solution, where a disease like cerebral malaria has a 20% mortality rate in adults and 15% in children). He returned to the U.S. after only three weeks away and the social media universe (dramatic over reach, that one) was all abuzz about something Justin Bieber may have or have not said, or may have or have not implied. My friend's response was decidedly in the normal range, "Are you frickin kidding me??" This nation of ours is drowning in its own self-obsession. The rest of the world, by comparison (not you Australia, your gov't has gone from cool to sucks in less than two years, ours is gaining) seems to be more in the normal range. We only need two words, and the bar is set really low, btw. Just two and if we can return to them, a lot of good and beneficial things will result. In the voice of Rod Serling, "Imagine if you will, a country once known for freedom and independence. But lately has taken to wallowing in something we might call, the Twilight Zone." Two words that will return colleges to bastions of ideas, Washington to a capitol no longer in need of chain-link fences as performance art, and hopefully rescue the Republic of Texas from the Bear Republic to its left (catch the nuance?). The words? Civil Discourse. A bridge too far? Maybe not. It's certainly worth praying for.
My grandmother used to fuss at me for saying dang, yet when she got mad she would say "oh foot!" Let's go Brandon is an innocuous way to express displeasure at the policies and failure of the current administration without using expletives and being crass. Also Eric, you can make fun of me for being unvaxxed (although I am on NO pharmaceuticals), and for beleiveing the election was stolen, though the machine theft is almost secondary to the mail in ballot, dead people and all the collective cheating that moved the needle. I saw it in my very red small town that has not voted for a Dem president in anyone's living memory, but where our Dem governor appointed our election commission which appointed our registrar who has used all sorts of trickery and broken many laws. Of course despite the strange lack of Biden signs and Trump all over town, we bizarrly went for Biden. Also my brother had his vote stolen. Never got the absentee ballot he requested, but found out he voted anyhoo. When cases are brought to attempt to rectify the situation, the dem judge promptly throws them out. As such, I saw on a small scale the same things being alleged in other localities and it was not my overactive imaginiation, though my imaginiation probably is overactive. No worries, though. I am cool with you thinking differently as you are my brother in Christ and I also have a son named Gunnar. When life is outpacing the Babylon Bee we should all embrace our senses of humor and work at not being offended.
The problem is quite simple. Each side is looking at the other as an evil enemy when flesh and blood is not the problem. Why is the right increasingly copying the very worst behavior of the left? Someone has to be the first to get off the merry-go-round. American Christians need to get on their face before God and emulate Christ, not the accuser. Please spare me a sermon about the overturned tables in the temple. The lesson there was to the religious leaders, NOT the government. If anything, too many American church leaders are political.
"Why is the right increasingly copying the very worst behavior of the left?" The reason is that the Left does not understand logic, reason, hypocrisy, grace, compromise or much of anything else that normal people do to resolve problems. For the Left it is winning at any cost. Look at it this way: Getting in the Left's faces now in the manner you seem to detest appears to be starting to work (Loudin County, Virginia Election, Vax pushback, Lets Go Brandon, etc. etc.) Shouting is always better than shooting. Always better. Trust me on that one.
Never-ending escalation is not the answer either. I prefer to neither shout nor shoot. I trust God, not mankind.
Another group that can't stand to be mocked are the Trump myrmidons. FJB/Let's go Brandon is a direct hit to them because, as Christoper B pointed out below, it's grass roots, Trump didn't start it. That takes attention away from the Trump ego. They'll try to co-opt LGB to keep him relevant.
"The only major difference between Woke-o Haram and Islamic Jihadists is the former won’t kill you." Give 'em time. They've justified their reprehensible behavior to this point so I don't see it as a bridge too far to say the day will come that they justify that, too. How bitterly ironic that the people who scream "fascist" the loudest emulate its very definition almost to the letter except they are far left, not far right.
"Legion, upon departing the drowned pigs in Mark 5, got bored and started social media. Now it storms about looking for souls to devour."
This is one of the best written lines you have written--there have been others, this highlights your gift of "final word" and conclusion. Erick, this is beyond solid. An excellent analysis of our current situation. This will actually help me as I continue with my doctorate (from the same place you are getting yours).
Never apologize for being right. Never cease to attack Satan. I was amused at the comment, "You're better than this." Really? Specifically, were they referring to your directness at exposing the falsehood of action or is there version of reality itself different?
I'm going with the latter!
Absolutely. The wokes are unregenerate reprobates, depraved, corrupt, but not without purpose. I'm thankful you have a platform for your voice, and gifted worldview.
People also forget that Jesus said "Hell was not created for YOU! It was created by God, for Lucifer and his demon followers!" The REASON The Christ was sent was to save you from Satan, who WILL drag you to his hell with him. When Adam fell in the garden, he sentenced every human born to be handed over to Lucifer, and to be honest, the ONLY way out IS The Christ, the Holy Sacrifice that hides your sin from God, with his blood!
The Moloch worshipers who sacrifice their own children to Satan can be saved...as can the Pope who claims to represent The One!
Quit playing the devil's games, and realize that the tormentor of your soul does own you, but God HAS given you THEE Way Out! Accept His Sacrifice, that He paid to get you BACK from the permanent death! Biden serves the Chinese and is handing us over to them, FOR MAMON! (money)! He does not care for you, as is most of our representatives! Portland is the example of Biblical lawlessness! It's what Sodom looked like just before destruction by a Holy God!
WAKE UP! Satan hates ALL humanity, because God created you, and Lucifer only owns you if you let him!
Amen, and Amen, Erick! Peter Kreeft has written extensively on the matter of spiritual warfare, including in his How to Destroy Western Civilisation:
"Spiritual warfare is real. Wars on earth always reflect wars in Heaven. Life is jihad, holy war. Too many Muslims think the enemy is flesh and blood, and too many Christians think there is no enemy at all. The devils laugh at us both."
"A crucial example of our reversal of first and second things is the relation between truth and freedom. Freedom is for truth, not truth for freedom. Deny truth, and you destroy freedom. The truth makes you free; freedom does not make you true."
"Politics is not absolute. Politics is not religion. In the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, we are political about our religion and religious about our politics. That is our idolatry."
"Alexander Solzhenitsyn was exactly on target when, in his great Templeton Address of 1983, one of the greatest and most prophetic speeches in the history of Western civilization, when he diagnosed the ultimate cause of all the ills and decadences and self-destructivenesses of our culture of death in one simple sentence: “Men have forgotten God.” The sophisticates and intellectuals and chattering classes that heard that speech were outraged. They never forgave him. People will forgive you for being wrong, but they will never forgive you for being right."
Not quite sure what "you're better than this" means -- or what "you're better than this" means. Better than what? I also like the turn of phrase "graceless contempt." It describes it perfectly. There's a fine line between "turning the other cheek" and "putting on the armor of God."
Luke 8:32–36.
__The Demons__ (1871-1872) is one of the 4 major novels of Dostoevsky. It is not known as well. as _Crime and Punishment_ or _The Brothers Karamazov_.
It begins with Luke 8:32–36..
__Demons__ is an allegory of the potentially catastrophic consequences of the political and moral nihilism that were becoming prevalent in Russia in the 1860s.
Dostoevsky wrote that "Communism will conquer one day, irrespective of whether the Communists are right or wrong. But this triumph will stand very far from the Kingdom of Heaven. All the same, we must accept that this triumph will come one day, even though none of those who at present steer the world's fate have any idea about it at all.
Luke 8:32–36.
(sometimes translators title this novel _The Possessed_ or, _The Devils_.)
Good for you Erick! I subscribe to hear your explanations and along with those I enjoy your opinions -often hard to not intertwine them. Keep on!
Thank you.
I love everything about this, Erick! We ARE in the war of our lives for this country. AND, as Christians, we are to speak up according to God's word. You can like or dislike the Let's Go Brandon chant, but it doesn't change the fact that evil is afoot in this nation. Let's put on our armor and fight.