Sunday, November 13, 2016

You can't just say it, you have to prove it.

PLEASE:  PROVE IT, one way or another, prove it.  The mainstream media and their talking heads say things like how Hillary won the popular vote by such and such a number.  The alternative conservative media says the DEMOCRATS STOLE THE ELECTION IN FIVE STATES.  Examples of this were reported during the election while it was happening.  If you compare the numbers it could be that Hillary did NOT have the popular vote. 

There shouldn't be some people who know this and some who don't. 

The mainstream is also reporting that there is violence by Trump supporters against Hillary supporters.  I've seen lots of video that shows it is the other way around and seen NO video that supports it.  Newt Gingrich said the viole3nce by Trump voters is completely fabricated.  This is a matter of FACT.  There shouldn't be different opinions on such an issue.  IT NEEDS TO BE PROVED ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.

Propaganda is a known tool of Marxists and Communists.  Lying is their forte and a favorite method for getting their way.  They don't mind misleading the whole nation if it serves their selfish ends.  And I'm sure there are some among the conservatives who aren't above such things either, but it's practically the definition of the Left.

WE NEED EVIDENCE.  WE NEED PROOF ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.

And I'm tired of hearing how Trump's concern with national security is racism or xenophobia.  NO, IT IS A CONCERN WITH NATIONAL SECURITY.  Turning that into racism is Leftist politically correct propaganda-generated paranoia.  It's unfortunate that there are racist groups that support Trump, and he should repudiate them to be absolutely clear, but he isn't responsible for their supporting him.   Is Trump a misogynist?  In spite of his crude talk at times I don't think so.  Stop using such epithets.

America has never been perfect but I don't remember ever before seeing anything like the degree of manipulation and self-serving lies we've been seeing by the Left over the last few decades.

OK, so what IS love of neighbor? It begins with the Ten Commandments

What does it mean to "love your neighbor?"  This is the second of the two great commandments as Jesus preached them, the first being to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.  What is that but the first of the Ten Commandments? 

I've seen this teaching of Jesus about the two great commandments distorted by "liberal" Christians, who don't understand that He uses them to stand inclusively for all the Ten Commandments, all the "Law and the Prophets."  They also distort the passage to make it mean that He is commanding us to love ourselves, although the passage actually says that we are to love our neighbor AS ourselves.  Loving ourselves is taken for granted;  the commandment is to love others in the same way as we love ourselves.*

The true understanding of the two great commandments is that the first, loving God, is contained in the First Table of the Law or the first three commandments of the Ten Commandments:  loving God means first loving Him with all our faculties, then it means having no other gods before Him, understood as worshiping ANYTHING above Him, not just literal gods;  making no graven images to bow down to them and so on.  I used to think the tables were divided equally, five and five, but it's only the first three that are about how we are to relate to God.  

Then Jesus says the second commandment is "like unto the first," to love your neighbor as yourself.  The first great commandment includes all the First Table of the Law that defines what loving God means;  the second includes all the Second Table of the Law that defines what loving neighbor means.  So, what does it mean?  Well, it starts with the fourth commandment to honor the Sabbath, and the fifth to honor parents -- which includes all legitimate authority, then it goes on through the five Shalt Nots:   Thou shalt not murder, steal, lie, commit adultery or covet your neighbor's possessions.  THAT's what loving your neighbor means.  Doing no harm to your neighbor IS loving your neighbor.  There are of course positive expressions of loving your neighbor spelled out in the Old Testament  discussions of the Law and in Jesus' teachings, but the Ten Commandments is the foundation of them all.  And the two great Commandments, love of God and love of neighbor, are condensations of them all.

Liberal Christians may prefer to substitute some mush-headed idea of love they make up themselves for the second great commandment, and ignore all the Shalt-Nots which are HOW we love our neighbors.  This ends up being hating your neighbor in reality.

So think of the people out there trashing things and beating people up because they lost the election.  Some of them carry signs saying Trump supporters are haters.  Really?  Jesus also preached in the Sermon on the Mount that hatred in the heart is really murder, and there is a lot of hatred among the protestors, frothing-at-the-mouth hatred because they didn't get their way.  Destroying people's property and beating them up is certainly not loving your neighbor. 

But of course the protestors are on the side that has thrown out the Ten Commandments that would have told them what love is. 

This is no doubt a case of where "Judgement begins at the house of God" since the churches that distort the Ten Commandments, like those that violate God's laws by allowing women preachers and elders, like churches that don't require women to cover our heads in the assembly, like churches that treat homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle rather than a sin, that even ordain them to the leadership,  churches that call good evil and evil good, are the starting point of God's judgment that has been coming down on the whole nation, now expressed in these selfish hateful barbarian protests.

So these protests against a legitimate election are fruit of the Church's failure to obey God.  That's where it starts.  That's where we have to start to undo it.  By repentance and prayer.  God has had mercy on us in this election by saving us from the worst of the anti-Christ anti-American options and giving us somebody who might be able to begin to turn the tide back from evil to good.   But this can't be done without looking to God at every turn.  Trump says he's a Christian.  Then let him live it by starting every day with prayer that God will guide his decisions.

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*The reason for changing the wording to mean that it also commands us to love ourselves, is that we supposedly suffer from self-hate.  While in some sense this is a practical reality, people DO get depressed and want to do away with themselves, which is self-hating, in the Biblical sense it isn't:  self-hate in the Biblical sense is a form of self-love or of pride:  we "hate" ourselves because we aren't as perfect as we think we should be.  Our pride is wounded by seeing our flaws, our guilt, our sins.  If we weren't self-loving we wouldn't have such a feeling as self-hate at all.  The cure for "self-hate" then is accepting that we are flawed, being able to testify to our sinfulness and foolishness and wrongness without feeling hurt by it.  Not easy of course, but it is the Christian ideal.