Armageddon Is Here; Have No Fear

You can be prepared for the most momentous opportunity in the history of humankind. But first, a story:

An acquaintance of mine found a small iron chest filled with gold coins worth over $390,000; part of a railroad shipment lost in 1853, between Roanoke and Lynchburg, Virginia. You could say it was luck, but it only came about because he spent many years searching for hidden treasure. Over a decade, in fact. 

He took delight in searching but never struck it rich until he'd spent thousands of hours delving into court records, stories, and old newspapers; researching routes and locations. When he found a promising spot he went to work with his metal detector. He left no place unscanned, and no stone - a favorite hiding place for treasure - unturned.

He had faith that someday his searching would pay off. Every now and then he would find trinkets, lost coins, or a valuable antique gun. The joy he had in it was something to behold. It kept him going. But most people would have given up. He spent much more on transportation, lodging, and food than he ever recovered from his small finds. 

Was it his fate to find the treasure? I think so. But that's only because he had faith that someday he would. An old Latin saying, "Fortune favors the bold" holds true. Persistence and audacity seem to bring luck. A variation is, "The best defense is a strong offense." George Washington won some of his greatest victories in this way. Timidity and dithering can bring disaster. You must believe in your ultimate success despite defeats. We've all been defeated at times. George Washington lost more battles than he won. But he won the important ones, and learned from his defeats.

Our own faith in God is like this. Our fate is secured in heaven, but only if we have faith that this is so. Even if you don't have much faith, it's extremely important that you act as if you do. Faith will grow over time, and courage will be abundant in you if you allow it to grow with faith. They can become habits, faithfulness and courage. Children often have simple and powerful faith. Jesus said, 
"Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”  Luke 18:17-34

We can be adults and still have childlike faith. When the chips are really down, and a crisis is in full flower, it's no time for half measures and an excess of caution. Adults know this. A great many lives have been lost by indecision and fear. People often freeze when danger arises, unless they've prepared themselves and made ready for action. 

Evil conquers by fear. Adolf Hitler risked everything in early 1936 by brazenly invading the Rhineland with his small, raw army, using horses to carry supplies because he didn't have enough trucks. His generals had orders to turn tail immediately if they met resistance, but the French and English were too timid, disorganized, and scared to challenge the upstart Fuehrer. By the time the real danger was faced - after the occupation of Austria and the invasion of Czechoslovakia - the Nazi army was armed to the teeth, trained, and experienced. Faith was in Hitler and so was his fate. 

We must face evil when it is nascent, and, "nip it in the bud". If you see the first signs of weakness, fear, or criminality anywhere in your life, root it out completely. Do not be afraid.

The last book of the Bible, Revelation, describes the very End Time events we're experiencing now. The Second Coming is full upon us, and our reward for being on God's side is immense. 

Medusa, the Gorgon, whose face and writhing snake hair was so terrifying that Greek warriors turned to stone if they gazed at her. But her reflection did not carry the same power, thus Perseus used the back of his shield to locate and slay her. 
Many ancient Greek myths contain valuable life parables.

Do We Have a Moral Obligation To Refugees?

"There is a time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak; A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace..." Ecclesiastes, 3:7-8 

We are not presently in a time for peace. 

Suddenly, it appears, the poor and disadvantaged from failed states in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere have decided that the western world is where they want to be, and they have a right to be there. Curiously, the vast majority of these people are young men of military age, and ISIS leaders have been bragging for months that they will be sending undercover fighters to Europe and the Americas to destroy us, "the infidels" : Link

These young invaders will sire children quickly, and the hundreds of thousands who come now will be millions as the years pass. The present stream of "refugees" will become a flood in days to come. Besides, we westerners have already accepted millions of these people over the years. Their numerous angry children have grown up hating their host countries, and the west in general. Scandinavia, France, and Belgium have huge problems with these criminal youths. Many jihadist mass killings have been perpetrated - as were the Paris attacks in January and November - by these second-generation Islamists; even those whose parents deplore their actions and don't hate us.

Why don't these millions of discontented men of military age stand up and fight for their own nations? For thousands of years, men who wouldn't do this were called cowards, and they were shamed and disgraced for their weakness. Do we have an obligation to help these strong, young men escape their moral obligation to stand and fight for their own countries, and what they say they believe in? 

All significant nations have constitutions which clearly state that their leaders have a sworn obligation to defend their nations' borders. No nation can survive without enforced borders. The nations invading us rigorously enforce their borders. Yet we westerners dither and mumble while we're being invaded.

We non-Muslim peoples and nations of the world are at war with radical Islam, and not by choice. A religious reformation (much like ours in the 1500's) has shaken 1.5 billion Muslims all over the globe, and according to reliable polling, half want Shariah Law, the brutal, Medieval code which has made so many Muslim countries backward and miserable. Almost a fourth (375,000,000) have said they are justified in taking up arms against those who don't pray to Muhammad:  Link and Link

The freedoms we enjoy, and which have made the western world so rich, pleasant, and attractive are slated for destruction by these anti-Judeo-Christian-Buddhist-Hindu hordes. They're savage purveyors of mayhem and murder, and proud of it. But we people of other religions outnumber them at least four-to-one.

A core belief among Sunni and Shia Muslims (who make up more than 90% of Islam) is that there's a Twelfth Imam, "The Mahdi", coming to earth soon. Like Christ, but supreme over Christ, he will remake the world and destroy its evils: Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and other "apostates" who will not submit to Allah's word. Believers in the Mahdi preach that violently overthrowing the western world and destroying all who stand in the way of their violent vision of Islam, their so-called "jihad", will cause the 12th Imam to appear sooner, and make the world a paradise.

Millions of westerners, and most of their leaders, refuse to believe what Muslims tell them openly, and they're ignoring the hideous violence and destruction that have already laid waste to the cities and nations who harbor these jihadists. We face a "sea of somnambulists", sleepwalkers who will get us killed by their inaction. 

Civilization is a delicate thing, and when broken, may never return to a civilized state. Look at the former colonies of the once-great powers throughout the world. Many of today's failed states were prosperous former colonies: Somalia, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Lebanon, Venezuela, Argentina, etc.  

Pray, and prepare yourself and your country for defense, according to your wide-awake conscience.

The British-born 'Jihadi John' who proudly beheaded almost 30 victims on YouTube before a missile delivered by a drone blew him, his buddies, and his car to pieces on November 12, 2015. Link

The Dark Night of the Soul

St. John of the Cross (1542 - 1591) was a Spanish mystic, a Carmelite friar, and a priest who was illegally tortured, starved, and imprisoned by rebellious Catholic authorities who resented his attempts to purge corruption from their church.  Along with St. Teresa of Avila, John worked to return genuine spirituality to a Carmelite order that had become wealthy and unholy. He was publicly beaten, fed only a little bread, water, and salt fish, and imprisoned for nine months in a six-by-six-foot cell. He experienced a spiritual breakthrough that changed his life forever; peace, expansion of consciousness, and joy blossomed within him which conquered all his fears. It was then, too, that he found a way to escape.

Back among friends, he went on to write Dark Night of the Soul, a powerful and transformative work that spells out what happens to us as our worst fears are realized. When we are humiliated, in pain, suffering most; finding no comfort in our faith, none in our daily living, and with the terror of nothingness staring us in the face, we are in that dark night. This is spiritual death, when the power of God is most active and faith is most rewarded. 

If we don't give in to panic at that moment of terror, a transcendental light will enter our mind and heart. Truth is, our lives are actually a kind of darkness that will never satisfy us for long. The personality we are, and know, and have built for ourselves since childhood, cannot survive great suffering and death. But our soul and spirit can, and will, if we allow it.  The true eternal light of God - the Lux Aeterna - reveals that we live in the transitory darkness of this material world, which is "...the valley of the shadow of death..."(23rd Psalm).  Jesus said, "I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains one grain, and nothing more, by itself alone. But if it dies it produces many others and yields a rich harvest."  -  John 12:24

The dark night of the soul causes the husk of the "grain of wheat" to split, and the seed sprouts, sees a new light, and takes root in the world. This is the meaning of Jesus's parable, revealing the point of our sufferings, the purpose served by our trials and tribulations. To prove it, Jesus allowed himself to be crucified, and proved by his resurrection that this is the way to salvation.  

The dark night of the world's soul descends on us now, as savage killers - nourished  by the world's  corruption - ravage the globe and wreck entire economies. But God's purposes cannot be denied or thwarted. We are not all martyrs, and many of us will choose the path of self-defense, and taking up arms against the enemy. This too is a calling. 

Painting by El Greco (1541-1614) of the priory in Toledo, Spain, where St. John of the Cross was imprisoned.

Civilization On The Cliff's Edge

Nothing remains for long at the cliff's edge. Either it retreats from the edge or it goes over.

We see evidence every day that lawlessness, barbarism, extreme violence, and sexual depravity are rising and advancing quickly; usually in the name of a god no sane person can recognize, or by worshipers of hatred and grievance.

ISIS released a statement immediately after the Paris attacks, taking credit for them, "In the name of Allah, the most gracious and most merciful." What is merciful and gracious about mass murder? This is the very definition of evil and madness.The spirit of the Anti-Christ is powerful everywhere, around the globe.

ISIS represents the Sunni wing of Islam (centered in Saudi Arabia), but the Shiite wing (centered in Iran), also shares the same belief that a Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi, whom they believe is their Savior, will come for them if they plunge the world into chaos, war, and violence: Link  and   Link

The fruits of civilization, peace, prosperity, and abundance - which took many centuries to build - are being destroyed before our eyes.  Every day there are multiple new atrocities. Yet the leaders of the west, one of which received a Nobel Peace Prize before accomplishing anything whatsoever, brags that ISIS "is on the run.... contained.....[the strategies] are working."  Link

The Nobel Committee now regrets their error:  Link

The key to the Western Tradition - which produced many centuries of advancement in our abilities and understanding of human rights, law, science, and economics - is a belief in God. Before Moses, humankind had little or no understanding of law, other than as the whim of a Pharaoh or king. The Ten Commandments are a quantum leap in human development, proving that understanding and cooperation with the Divine Will brings the fruits of civilization.

Our present catastrophe was foretold thousands of years ago, and God knows our suffering.

The Universe Created Itself? Are Scientists Serious?

Yes, most scientists do believe this. But we conscious beings who are  capable of understanding the universe owe it to ourselves to ask whether this is probable, and if so, how likely? Our cosmos-given brain sees and knows that nothing in our world creates itself, and all complex things generally require vigilant and constant oversight in order to thrive.

When we contemplate the visible cosmos, a 13.8 billion-year-old creation, our minds are stretched beyond all reason or capacity to grasp such a reality. Even more unbelievable, it's obvious that the laws of physics that Sir Isaac Newton discovered and understood apply everywhere and in complete accord with each other. This is powerful evidence of a great Lawgiver, a Creator Mind who framed the cosmos in mathematical reason and predictability. Gravity, inertia, light speed, thermodynamics, and other laws have worked exactly the same way since the beginning; the so-called Big Bang.

Scientists largely agree that our material universe was created in a single burst, and from a single point, when time and space came into existence. The light from those early millions of years can still be seen by powerful telescopes. Moreover, it's expanding and accelerating. The farthest galaxies are traveling outward at nearly the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second. 

In just the last 450 years we've discovered how to make lenses that show us these perfect truths. We're part of a Divine Plan, where, through humankind, the cosmos discovers itself. This is more evidence of the almost inconceivable intelligence that guides us.

Additionally, the Table of Elements, and the electro-chemical makeup of their interactions, is exactly the same everywhere we look throughout the universe. Link 
We know that these elements - iron, hydrogen, nickel, helium, sodium, gold, etc. - are found throughout the cosmos. When stars consume and/or create them, they leave a distinctive color-signature in starlight, a fingerprint of proof. Again, this is perfection beyond comprehension.

                                       
  The Sombrero Galaxy consists of about 300 billion stars. Just one galaxy among trillions.

But the night sky and telescopic images are only the visible surface of Creation. Going the other way, smaller and smaller into the fabric of matter, there are invisible worlds almost too small for us to believe; the sub-atomic realm of particles and energies that make the atom seem giant, like Jupiter next to a grapefruit.  Link
At this level, all the large-scale Newtonian laws don't apply, and matter does bizarre things that beggar the imagination. Sub-atomic particles behave in lawless, magical, and chaotic fashion. But the chaos has patterns, too, another conundrum of serious magnitude.

Additionally, science now knows there are multiple dimensions, vast worlds-within-worlds that we can't imagine, which interpenetrate us, and whose strangeness is almost frightening. Sir Arthur Eddington, one of the most important astrophysicists of the 20th Century, said, "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."  Link
Much of what was once science fiction is becoming science fact.

Isn't it worth the effort to try and connect with the Creator of all this? Millions have testified throughout history that it's possible, and that God is anxious to show us things that are not only beautiful and astonishing, but satisfying beyond all worldly things. This God gave us curiosity, brains, and a heart to help us along. It's a journey like nothing else on earth. You don't even have to give up all your worldly goods. Start with a request, and see how it goes. You may be surprised. 

The Human Desire To Be God

To wield power over nature and its violence, to heal ourselves and others, create wealth and beauty, defeat death, and bring peace to the world, would be wonderful powers, would they not? To be God is a desire as old as humankind. But is there room for more than one? 

Ray Kurzweil, a renowned and influential futurist now working for Google, says that by the year 2030, we will consent to have robot implants in our brains that will make us godlike: "Evolution creates structures and patterns that over time are... more knowledgeable, more intelligent, more creative, more capable of expressing higher sentiments like being loving," he said. "So it's moving in the direction that God has been described as having -- these qualities without limit.... Evolution is a spiritual process and makes us more godlike," was Kurzweil's conclusion. 

Is there room and opportunity for the entire population of the world to be individual gods? Isn't that the root of all our problems? If I think I'm god and I don't like you, or am jealous of your possessions, don't I have a right to eliminate you and take what you have? From the first day humanity organized itself in settled communities, the struggle for power was on, and certain families elevated themselves to rulership over all the others. They recruited armies and imposed their will on those who were kinder and less ruthless. Thus we had kings, queens, and Pharaohs. They declared themselves gods over all ordinary people, regardless of talent, who were relegated to the lower classes or outright slavery. There has never been enough property or good things in life to satisfy everyone; and some people want it all, anyway, regardless of supply. 

This is a kind of hell, where the real God and Creator of All Things is ignored and supplanted by mortal beings. The whole course of history has pretty much been centered on these power struggles. It's important that you see this film from 2014: Exodus; Gods & Kings

The real story of Moses and Pharaoh Ramses of Egypt, which took place around 1450 B.C. (according to the most recent archaeological evidence) lays it out for all to see. Human nature has not changed since then; only our technology has changed to make us appear godlike. Ancient problems and conflicts are exactly the same as modern ones, except now we have nuclear weapons:

Our delusion and desire to be like God was the original conflict in Genesis, and the Garden of Eden. See it now and find insight:

Would Jesus Be a Socialist If He Were Alive Today?

Socialists and 'progressives' love to make this claim, that yes, Jesus would be a liberal socialist; or even a Marxist. Because these government systems are primarily concerned (supposedly) with the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor, they are essentially and truly Christian.

This is a lie, for several reasons. First and foremost, Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world... "(John 18:36), and, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God things that are God's" (Mark 12:17).  Also, "The Prince of This World cometh, and he hath nothing in me." (John 14:30).

These words clearly delineate the difference between Heaven and Earth. Our earthly realm is ruled by Satan, one way or another. Nations differ dramatically, and some are more genuinely Judeo-Christian; thus, they have better living standards. But demonic influences still reign. Crimes of every horrific kind still happen. We can't escape these until our lives end. Earthly wealth and power are crude counterfeits of the Creator's wealth and power. He is the Father who sent Jesus and the other prophets to show us the way to the true Kingdom of God. Until the day comes when Jesus returns with power and glory, this world is basically a bootcamp and a minefield for the training of new disciples and prophets. Many of our ancestors understood this, but their knowledge has been lost or frittered away for generations.

Jesus also said, "You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes? Or figs from thistles? ...Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing. but inwardly they are ravening wolves." (Matt. 7:16-20).

This is proof that our world is filled with falsehoods and lies, and the fruits of socialists, Marxists, and 'progressives' is chaos and misery. These political people are almost entirely atheists or agnostics, and their god is politics. They are proud of this, and often say people of faith are simple-minded and deluded. They do not know the true God, the super-intelligence behind all things. The list of hellish countries run by these people is long: N. Korea,  Sudan, Zimbabwe, indeed most of Africa. Also, Venezuela, Argentina, and much of S. America. Misery abounds almost everywhere outside of the western world. But now many EU nations along with the United States are headed for collapse and bankruptcy, too. The rise of murderous Islamists threatens the lives and well being of everyone. It's only a matter of time before they acquire nuclear weapons. This is mankind's punishment for turning away from God, and it was prophesied in the 5th Century B.C.E., and again in the 1st Century A.D.

Jesus said, "He who is greatest among you is the servant of all." (Matt. 23:11). Do you see the politicians and leaders of nations humbling themselves and being the servants of all? No. They all, down to the last, aggrandize themselves, live rich lives, abuse their authority, oppress others, and even loot their people and their respective nations. There may be a few exceptions, but I don't know to a certainty. If mankind embraced this idea that we're greatest when we humble ourselves and serve others, it would turn the world upside down. It's the hardest of all God's requests.

There is only one unpardonable sin, wounding the Holy Spirit. The words of truth spoken by Jesus and his disciples are the Holy Spirit. Those who distort or obfuscate these words are committing an unpardonable sin, punishable by unutterably terrible consequences. (Mark 3:28-30).

By this measure Pope Francis is failing badly. He has condemned "unfettered capitalism" as a primary social evil (as if it still existed), and he's tacitly endorsing both socialism and communism, which exist today and are causing immeasurable suffering and misery. He has barely said a word about radical Islam, which is slaughtering Christians today, and would murder him and his people in an instant for their heresy. This is an evil age we live in, and the Pope is unhelpful to say the least.

We are judged by our specific intentions, and their consequences. Whether we talk about God's Law or secular law, intention is the critical factor. What are the specific intentions of the socialists, 'progressives', and Marxists? And the disastrous consequences of their actions tell us everything we need to know about who they truly are.

Child Murder and Abuse; Are They Wrong? No, Says a Majority of People

It's happening all the time in the U.S. and other countries, and few people protest. It's known as 'abortion on demand'. Supporters of abortion on demand are generally non-believers in God. But consider the risks. Are you willing to bet your eternal life and soul that it makes no difference if the God of all goodness exists? Such a God will punish great evil. We are judged by our specific intentions while we live. What are your specific intentions?

It came to light on July 14 that the organization known as Planned Parenthood Federation of America has been harvesting and selling the organs - including the heads - of aborted human babies. A video was released proving that high officials of the organization are financially involved: Link
What are their specific intentions?

Update: A seventh video was released on August 19 proving that Planned Parenthood knowingly allowed a technician to cut through the face of a living, fully developed baby, to extract the intact brain for sale. Link

Planned Parenthood is an international organization, and it's highly likely they're doing the same thing in other countries also. The science of transplantation has made it medically possible to repair humans in the same way we repair cars. Just as a 'chop shop' sells car parts, Planned Parenthood sells human parts.

A California-based group known as the Center for Medical Progress conducted lawful 'sting' operations where hired actors posed as purchasers of these body parts, and they secretly video-recorded Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood, during a restaurant lunch, talking in a very casual manner about how she harvests baby body parts, and the dollar market value of heads, livers, hearts, and so on.

Update: On July 21 a new video was released  This one shows a senior Planned Parenthood official discussing “less crunchy” techniques to get “whole specimens” and haggling over the price of "fetus tissue" because she wants “a Lamborghini.” The Center for Medical Progress project leader David Daleiden told the media there are "at least 12, really solid videos", with thousands of hours of footage still to come.

"So, we'll be doing this for the foreseeable future," Daleiden said.

Update: A third video - the worst so far - was released on July 28, showing the actual dismembering and pricing of body parts. The video includes the testimony of Holly McDonnell, who worked for Stem Express,  a company that paid Planned Parenthood for fetuses, cut them up, and sold the organs and limbs. Link

Such 'sting' operations are conducted all the time by law enforcement and are considered to be powerful evidence of crimes if the people running the sting are not pressuring or unlawfully influencing the suspect(s). These videos have been seen by law enforcement, and ruled legal.

"Planned Parenthood's criminal conspiracy to make money off of aborted baby parts reaches to the very highest levels of their organization," David Daleiden, who led the undercover project, said in a statement: Link

Planned Parenthood initially claimed the videos were fake, then said they were staged and altered, but those claims have been proved wrong.  Now they say what they do is legal in the practice of medicine, and helps researchers find cures for disease. Planned Parenthood claims they're only helping people "donate tissue with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards," according to spokesman Eric Ferrero.

This video evidence is merely the worst of many documented crimes by Planned Parenthood. They've been caught numerous times over the years encouraging abortions in adolescent children and sexual abuse victims, hiding evidence, and aiding underage prostitution. The U.S. Congress has finally pledged to investigate the organization.

Abortionists and their supporters say that a baby in the womb is not human, not really alive, and is merely "tissue", akin to a tumor. It's nothing until the mother says it is. But they offer no evidence for their belief. Most men and women who have had children know that this is a lie. The Scriptures of the world's great religions also testify to the truth that life begins at conception: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb" - Psalm 139:13.  Which condemns these baby killers to a terrible fate.

There are situations when it's necessary to abort a child, but they are not common, and the vast majority of abortions are done for selfish reasons, especially in the black community, where Planned Parenthood largely operates. Which gives the lie to the "Black lives matter" chant we hear now on the media. In our age of advanced and abundant birth control, there's no excuse for this holocaust.

Margaret Sanger (1883 to 1966) founded Planned Parenthood as part of her life's work in Eugenics, the planned breeding and "racial purification" of the human race. She said of blacks and immigrants, "[they are]...human weeds, reckless breeders, spawning... human beings who never should have been born."    Margaret Sanger, Pivot of Civilization. 
Also, "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race.

Child murder is the ultimate human depravity, a heinous crime by any measure. It results from the devaluing of human life, human rights, and the dignity of humankind. Mass murder flourishes in such environments, and if innocent children can be butchered by society at large, how long will it be before other "undesirables" are slaughtered also? The answer is not long. We have over a century of experience now with the mechanisms of state-sponsored mass extermination, and the pattern is unmistakeable. You are next, if society demands it.

How did we get to this horrific place of hatred for human life? Incrementally. First came the ultra-rationalists of the French Revolution. Then the materialist Karl Marx, who gained infamy by persuading his followers that labor and money were the ultimate good, a veritable god; and that "religion is the opiate of the people". Then the late 19th Century philosophers, like Friedrich Nietzsche, who said, "God is dead". Other philosophers and scientists joined in the chorus. It infected academia, globally. Soon it became a rallying cry for revolution and the overthrow of traditional moral norms and laws. Then World War I resulted, and the mass slaughter - 17 million deaths and 20 million casualties - caused many more people to question the existence of God and doubt all spiritual faith. Communism, Naziism, Eugenics, and other materialistic philosophies blossomed and bore hideous and poisonous fruit, particularly in Russia. Lenin, Stalin, and their Soviet communists put to death another 50 million (more or less, as they didn't keep meticulous records) Russians and non-Russians between 1918 and 1985.

WWI ended in 1918 before any of the basic issues that brought it forth were settled, so World War II began and ended with about 65 million more dead, both military and civilian. 

Mao Tse Tung and his Stalinist communists caused the deaths of a further 55 million or so between 1949 and 1976, when he died. The 20th Century is notable for the non-religious mass annihilation of more people, by far, than ever died in religious wars over previous centuries. Why? Because purely rational, "modern" thinking, endorsed by science, cannot fathom the spiritual and religious ideals of soul, spirit, and non-material worlds. In the reckoning of science, great leaders like Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and others, were delusional charlatans. God and spirit cannot be 'proved' by the scientific method. 

Cultural disintegration accelerated in America, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that women have a Constitutional right to an abortion, even though there's nothing written in the Constitution about reproduction or sex.  As a result, in 2014, American taxpayers. through the federal government, paid Planned Parenthood $542 million for abortions. That's more than $10 million a month. 

Update: There is only one political party in the U.S. that supports child murder, the Democrats. They voted as a block, unanimously, on August 4th, to continue the $540 million flow of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, and they've vowed to fight brutally to keep them in business. The opposition Republican Party voted 53 to 1 to defund Planned Parenthood on August 4th. Sixty votes were needed, and no Democrats were found who had conscience enough to switch their vote.

After all the mass slaughter of the 20th Century up to 1973, human life had been devalued to the point that a baby in the womb was no big deal, in the minds of many. So why not liquidate it? Nothing in our culture has dragged us down as much as this careless attitude toward sex and procreation. About 55 million abortions have been performed in the U.S. since 1973. Hundreds of millions of abortions have been performed worldwide in these recent decades. We've become heartless and sick.

Seeing With the Heart

  

It's not fashionable in our century to talk about the heart as anything much more than an organ for pumping blood, but not that long ago most people in the Judeo-Christian world - and many out of it - knew that the heart was an organ of spirit also.  Having a "good heart" was, and still is in many cases, a compliment; even a sign of sainthood, depending on the situation. When people were perceived to be "heartless", it was recognized as a spiritual disease that causes cruelty and death.

Our eyes see the light that comes into them, and that light registers in our brains. But to genuinely understand the world and all life, we need to see with a compassionate heart and feel the empathy that goes with 'heart seeing'. The heart sees and understands things the mind cannot grasp.

The Black Heart Plague afflicting us now is the culmination of centuries of distorted thinking. Purely scientific reasoning, and the atheism that goes with it, afflicts our world and poisons our minds, if that is all we use our minds and hearts for. A disconnected heart, cut off from God, will rot out like the hull of an old wooden ship. We're seeing a plague of rotten hearts everywhere,  particulary in the seats of power.

God, save us, according to your promise.

Update: On July 24, the Justice Dept. and the Attorney general of California both announced they're investigating the producers of the videos, the Center for Medical Progress. They apparently don't care about Planned Parenthood's operations. This is all about Democrat/Leftist politics, and the Democrat/Left adores abortionists. President Obama appeared before them and praised them in 2013, saying, "God bless you." Obama is on record, for many years, favoring late-term abortions, meaning the murder of live and viable third-trimester babies.

Update: On July 30, a new video was released showing Planned Parenthood agreeing to provide intact babies for dissection and sale. Link

Update: On August 4, one more video was released backing up the others. PP is a hideous business marketing destroyed human beings. Link

Update: A sixth video was released on August 12, proving that patient consent was ignored or not given for Planned Parenthood's baby fetus sales scheme. This is contrary to the law and PP's previous statements: Link
Also, a federal appeals court judge in California ruled that PP cannot block from distribution the videos we've been seeing, or the ones still to come.

Update: An eighth video was released on August 25, showing that Planned Parenthood is interested in the money, and a high sales volume of butchered babies. Link 

Is It Evil to Kill Unborn Babies and Dismember Them For Sale? No, Say Many

Supporters of abortion on demand are generally non-believers in God. But consider the risks of being an atheist or an agnostic. Are you willing to bet your eternal life and soul that it makes no difference if the God of all goodness exists? Such a God will punish great evil. We are judged by our specific intentions while we live. What are your specific intentions?

It came to light on July 14 that the organization known as Planned Parenthood Federation of America has been harvesting and selling the organs - including the heads - of aborted human babies, A video was released proving that high officials of the organization are financially involved: Link
What are their specific intentions?

Update: A seventh video was released on August 19 proving that Planned Parenthood knowingly allowed a technician to cut through the face of a living, fully developed baby, to extract the intact brain for sale. Link

Planned Parenthood is an international organization, and it's highly likely they're doing the same thing in other countries also. The science of transplantation has made it medically possible to repair humans in the same way we repair cars. Just as a 'chop shop' sells car parts, Planned Parenthood sells human parts.

A California-based group known as the Center for Medical Progress conducted lawful 'sting' operations where hired actors posed as purchasers of these body parts, and they secretly video-recorded Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood, during a restaurant lunch, talking in a very casual manner about how she harvests baby body parts, and the dollar market value of heads, livers, hearts, and so on.

Update: On July 21 a new video was released  This one shows a senior Planned Parenthood official discussing “less crunchy” techniques to get “whole specimens” and haggling over the price of "fetus tissue" because she wants “a Lamborghini.” The Center for Medical Progress project leader David Daleiden told the media there are "at least 12, really solid videos", with thousands of hours of footage, still to come.

"So, we'll be doing this for the foreseeable future," Daleiden said.

Update: A third video - the worst so far - was released on July 28, showing the actual dismembering and pricing of body parts. The video includes the testimony of Holly McDonnell, who worked for Stem Express,  a company that paid Planned Parenthood for fetuses, cut them up, and sold the organs and limbs. Link

Such 'sting' operations are conducted all the time by law enforcement and are considered to be powerful evidence of crimes if the people running the sting are not pressuring or unlawfully influencing the suspect(s). These videos have been seen by law enforcement, and ruled legal.

"Planned Parenthood's criminal conspiracy to make money off of aborted baby parts reaches to the very highest levels of their organization," David Daleiden, who led the undercover project, said in a statement: Link

Planned Parenthood initially claimed the videos were fake, then said they were staged and altered, but those claims have been proved wrong.  Now they say what they do is legal in the practice of medicine, and helps researchers find cures for disease. Planned Parenthood claims they're only helping people "donate tissue with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards," according to spokesman Eric Ferrero.

This video evidence is merely the worst of many documented crimes by Planned Parenthood. They've been caught numerous times over the years encouraging abortions in adolescent children and sexual abuse victims, hiding evidence, and aiding underage prostitution. The U.S. Congress has finally pledged to investigate the organization.

Abortionists and their supporters say that a baby in the womb is not human, not really alive, and is merely "tissue", akin to a tumor. It's nothing until the mother says it is. But they offer no evidence for their belief. Most men and women who have had children know that this is a lie. The Scriptures of the world's great religions also testify to the truth that life begins at conception: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb" - Psalm 139:13.  Which condemns these baby killers to a terrible fate.

There are situations when it's necessary to abort a child, but they are not common, and the vast majority of abortions are done for selfish reasons, especially in the black community, where Planned Parenthood largely operates. Which gives the lie to the "Black lives matter" chant we hear now on the media. In our age of advanced and abundant birth control, there's no excuse for this holocaust.

Margaret Sanger (1883 to 1966) founded Planned Parenthood as part of her life's work in Eugenics, the planned breeding and "racial purification" of the human race. She said of blacks and immigrants, "[they are]...human weeds, reckless breeders, spawning... human beings who never should have been born."    Margaret Sanger, Pivot of Civilization. 
Also, "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race.

Child murder is the ultimate human depravity, a heinous crime by any measure. It results from the devaluing of human life, human rights, and the dignity of humankind. Mass murder flourishes in such environments, and if innocent children can be butchered by society at large, how long will it be before other "undesirables" are slaughtered also? The answer is not long. We have over a century of experience now with the mechanisms of state-sponsored mass extermination, and the pattern is unmistakeable. You are next, if society demands it.

How did we get to this horrific place of hatred for human life? Incrementally. First came the ultra-rationalists of the French Revolution. Then the materialist Karl Marx, who gained infamy by persuading his followers that labor and money were the ultimate good, a veritable god; and that "religion is the opiate of the people". Then the late 19th Century philosophers, like Friedrich Nietzsche, who said, "God is dead". Other philosophers and scientists joined in the chorus. It infected academia, globally. Soon it became a rallying cry for revolution and the overthrow of traditional moral norms and laws. Then World War I resulted, and the mass slaughter - 17 million deaths and 20 million casualties - caused many more people to question the existence of God and doubt all spiritual faith. Communism, Naziism, Eugenics, and other materialistic philosophies blossomed and bore hideous and poisonous fruit, particularly in Russia. Lenin, Stalin, and their Soviet communists put to death another 50 million (more or less, as they didn't keep meticulous records) Russians and non-Russians between 1918 and 1985.

WWI ended in 1918 before any of the basic issues that brought it forth were settled, so World War II began and ended with about 65 million more dead, both military and civilian. 

Mao Tse Tung and his Stalinist communists caused the deaths of a further 55 million or so between 1949 and 1976, when he died. The 20th Century is notable for the non-religious mass annihilation of more people, by far, than ever died in religious wars over previous centuries. Why? Because purely rational, "modern" thinking, endorsed by science, cannot fathom the spiritual and religious ideals of soul, spirit, and non-material worlds. In the reckoning of science, great leaders like Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and others, were delusional charlatans. God and spirit cannot be 'proved' by the scientific method. 

Cultural disintegration accelerated in America, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that women have a Constitutional right to an abortion, even though there's nothing written in the Constitution about reproduction or sex.  As a result, in 2014, American taxpayers. through the federal government, paid Planned Parenthood $542 million for abortions. That's more than $10 million a month. 

Update: There is only one political party in the U.S. that supports child murder, the Democrats. They voted as a block, unanimously, on August 4th, to continue the $540 million flow of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, and they've vowed to fight brutally to keep them in business. The opposition Republican Party voted 53 to 1 to defund Planned Parenthood on August 4th. Sixty votes were needed, and no Democrats were found who had conscience enough to switch their vote.

After all the mass slaughter of the 20th Century up to 1973, human life had been devalued to the point that a baby in the womb was no big deal, in the minds of many. So why not liquidate it? Nothing in our culture has dragged us down as much as this careless attitude toward sex and procreation. About 55 million abortions have been performed in the U.S. since 1973. Hundreds of millions of abortions have been performed worldwide in these recent decades. We've become heartless and sick.

Seeing With the Heart

  

It's not fashionable in our century to talk about the heart as anything much more than an organ for pumping blood, but not that long ago most people in the Judeo-Christian world - and many out of it - knew that the heart was an organ of spirit also.  Having a "good heart" was, and still is in many cases, a compliment; even a sign of sainthood, depending on the situation. When people were perceived to be "heartless", it was recognized as a spiritual disease that causes cruelty and death.

Our eyes see the light that comes into them, and that light registers in our brains. But to genuinely understand the world and all life, we need to see with a compassionate heart and feel the empathy that goes with 'heart seeing'. The heart sees and understands things the mind cannot grasp.

The Black Heart Plague afflicting us now is the culmination of centuries of distorted thinking. Purely scientific reasoning, and the atheism that goes with it, afflicts our world and poisons our minds, if that is all we use our minds and hearts for. A disconnected heart, cut off from God, will rot out like the hull of an old wooden ship. We're seeing a plague of rotten hearts everywhere,  particulary in the seats of power.

God, save us, according to your promise.

Update: On July 24, the Justice Dept. and the Attorney general of California both announced they're investigating the producers of the videos, the Center for Medical Progress. They apparently don't care about Planned Parenthood's operations. This is all about Democrat/Leftist politics, and the Democrat/Left adores abortionists. President Obama appeared before them and praised them in 2013, saying, "God bless you." Obama is on record, for many years, favoring late-term abortions, meaning the murder of live and viable third-trimester babies.

Update: On July 30, a new video was released showing Planned Parenthood agreeing to provide intact babies for dissection and sale. Link

Update: On August 4, one more video was released backing up the others. PP is a hideous business marketing destroyed human beings. Link

Update: A sixth video was released on August 12, proving that patient consent was ignored or not given for Planned Parenthood's baby fetus sales scheme. This is contrary to the law and PP's previous statements: Link
Also, a federal appeals court judge in California ruled that PP cannot block from distribution the videos we've been seeing, or the ones still to come.

"Party First, Law Second"

At the end of October, 2014, the Chinese Communist Party met in what they called their Fourth Plenum and decided that henceforth the country will be governed on the principle that the Party comes first, above any and all laws, saying, "Party First, Law Second". A better formula for the collapse of civilization can hardly be imagined. The whims and vagaries of feelings and personalities are once again, just as in Mao's time, supplanting morals and ethics. This is stunning for a country that admits that tens of millions of their own people were murdered by the lawless totalitarian Mao.

Is it a coincidence that China's stock market has lost a third of its value since last October? Who can believe the financial statements of their companies and mutual funds anymore? The Communist Party drives the whole of China's economy, essentially, and if they dictate that a failing company is actually turning a profit, who will dare contradict them? Party members at a whim can enrich or destroy anyone they wish to.

This is not just China's problem. Globally we're seeing massive erosion of the rule of law. The European Union has suspended their laws and their banking system's structural integrity to bail out Greece, once again. The collapse of Greece will be delayed for a few months, but their basic inability to work and produce has not been changed at all. They speak the right words, but know they're lying to get one more money 'fix' from the EU. Portugal, Spain, Italy. and France are facing the same problem as Greece, but there's not enough money in the EU system to take care of those much larger countries.

For over two-hundred years America prided itself in being, "A nation of laws, not men", as our second president, John Adams, stated. President Richard Nixon was impeached and driven from office in 1973 for violating laws and ethics that President Obama violates every month now, with the complicity of his supposed opposition. The United States's Democrat and Republican Parties have aided and abetted a Marxist/Progressive takeover of culture and the government. They have entirely sold out their country's best interests in their quest for power. They've violated civil laws in place for over a hundred years, and even the procedures of government long honored and established in the Constitution. Chaos is right around the corner. The mob is coming to rule, and it won't be denied anywhere in the world.

A nation without laws is a sham. How would our world, our universe, function without natural laws? Answer: it could not. The laws of physics can never be violated, and any scientist will tell you that. Philosophers and prophets sensed these laws long before Isaac Newton codified and numbered them, and all of civilization has depended on the competent enforcement of laws and ethical conduct. There are no exceptions. When these laws are violated or dishonored, that civilization collapses. To the degree they're ignored, there is no civilization.

We're seeing a new totalitarianism. This is much worse than mere dictatorship or authoritarianism. Authoritarian systems tend to ignore you if you stay out of the way, obey their whimsical rules, and keep quiet. But totalitarians - as in George Orwell's 1984 - want to change your thoughts. Today in North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and now China, your thoughts can get you killed. Here in America and in the European Union you can be driven to bankruptcy and disgrace by uttering the "wrong" opinion. Donald Trump and many other luminaries in business and entertainment are finding that out right now.

"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it", a statement wrongly attributed to France's Voltaire, was once a key principle of the Western Tradition. So was the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. You could say these are the cornerstones of genuine liberalism. But they are no longer honored. We are facing a very grim future. Pray to God for the courage and strength to seek Him and change your own heart:

What Are You Hungry For?

Hunger is a powerful motivator. That empty feeling in our belly can soon become all-pervasive, even painful, if too many hours go by without food. Starving people will resort to violence and even cannibalism if they're hungry enough. The Catholic Church long ago sanctioned cannibalism as a last resort to preserve one's life, as long as the person consumed died naturally. Life is a thing of great value to be preserved at great cost, if necessary.

When we finally receive good food and drink, a thrilling tingle of pleasure radiates to our very fingertips, and we laugh with pleasure. Such memories last for a lifetime. The agent who gives us this nourishment will earn our love. This is a two-edged sword, to be sure.

There are many kinds of hunger other than for physical food. We hunger for love, sex, family, companionship, power, wealth, and sometimes even more unsavory things. So it's clear there's a hierarchy of hungers and desires. Some of us hunger for peace, knowledge of God, the power to heal others, and to build great things for future generations. These are intangible things that satisfy the spirit. Our greatest leaders throughout history, men and women, displayed such hungers and desires.

We are defined by our hungers and desires. They show what we're really made of. We will struggle and fight to fill our emptiness. It's an irresistible imperative. But what if we are given cotton candy and coke, or drugs to satisfy our hunger? Can we be trained to accept those things over time in place of real nourishment? Might we forget about good food even as we're dying of malnutrition?

This is happening now all over the world. Hungry people are being given deadly substitutes instead of real nourishment; radical Islam in place of real religion, communism and socialism instead of individual liberty and free-market societies. Many people accept these substitutes and forget history, knowledge, and wisdom. Billions of people right now are watching 'reality' TV shows of people screaming at each other rather than programs about science and technology, where our real future is being shaped.

If you enjoy reading about crime and the legal system, particularly present-day cops and criminals, you know there are very shocking and terrifying hungers and desires human beings harbor and will act upon. It's still a mystery why this is and where they come from. Is it a genetic predisposition or a conscious decision that people make and then hold onto? Either way, people who murder, steal, or abuse others for pleasure must be kept far away from the vast majority of us who do not. Civilization is as fragile as an eggshell, and can be instantly swept aside by deluded and impassioned mobs.

Our Western Tradition of equality before the law and presumption of innocence until proven guilty is strained to the breaking point by assaults from the spiritually starving. The global popular media fueled by the depraved spirit of our age is running full speed to slander, defile, and destroy our ancient standards of decency, self-respect, and love for our neighbors. The malnourished mobs are insatiably hungry for mayhem, destruction, and murder. They've been fooled into thinking their misery is caused by others, and will only end when they take away from others.

Are there leaders alive today who see this and who will take action to change the direction of history? I think so. Can they do it alone? No. Will we help them? Are there enough of us?

We're Out of Time and Out of Solutions

None of our traditional solutions work anymore. Horrific tyrannies are mushrooming and wreaking mayhem and mass death; there's a global stagnation of economic growth that guarantees high rates of joblessness and static wages; the entrepreneurial spirit is choking from over-regulation; and all previous ideals of heroism and excellence in war or nation building are seen as passe'.

America is an example of this trend. A highly regarded polling organization reports a majority of voters do not feel that high-profile presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is “honest and trustworthy.” By a margin of 52% to 39% they think she's a serial liar, and can't be trusted to tell the truth. But they say they will vote for her anyway. Americans of any past age would have rejected such a candidate quickly. But not anymore. The standard of performance has been reduced to almost nothing by six years of Democrat Party power politics and media manipulation. 

As the famous pundit Peggy Noonan said,  “Wow, you’d vote for someone even you don’t believe? You might want to trust a president when the nukes begin to fall. What’s wrong with you?”

Great achievers, the guiding lights of history present and past, are now tainted by social media, internet trolls and 'deconstructionists'.  In reality, some of us are saintly, and highly accomplished. But where are they? The Dalai Lama has gone into seclusion. He recognizes that the world has gone mad. Social media is a mob that worships and magnifies all the worst impulses of ignorant and disturbed people. The dominion of humankind over the globe is ending. 

We humans are about to be eclipsed and swept aside. A huge wave of change is approaching us at lightning speed, a transformation of consciousness that will leave ordinary human capabilities in the dust. Artificial Intelligence - computers and their attendant applications - is gaining power at an exponential rate; that is, compounding, building on itself, and accelerating. Processing power - the speed of computers - doubles about every eighteen months, then doubles again, probably ad infinitum. It also becomes smaller and more invisible. At this point it won't be "artificial" intelligence anymore. Super Intelligence is a better name for it. SI for short.

There is a new movie out, called Ex Machina, showing what will happen fairly soon. Computers will become self-aware, just as we are, but they will have far fewer limitations than we do. Their learning-curve will be steep and quick. They will become much more intelligent and capable than humans. Take a look at this link.

Here in the U.S. computers are becoming more 'human' every year. In 1990 prominent futurists predicted that a computer would beat the world's greatest chess master by the year 2000. Skeptics and naysayers abounded. Then it happened sooner than predicted. An IBM machine named Deep Blue defeated Gary Kasparov, the reigning world chess master, in May 1997. Computers "don't get fatigued, don't need sleep, and don't blunder" the way humans do, Kasparov complained. He also thought the machine was "too human" to be genuine, but IBM proved to him that it was purely a machine.

That milestone was just the beginning of the shock wave. In 2011 another IBM computer named Watson defeated the three all-time-best, mufti-million-dollar Jeopardy! champions on prime time television. Jeopardy! is a game show that's much more complex than chess, requiring vast and detailed knowledge of many different kinds of subjects. Watson hears and understands human language, decodes word puzzles, and is exponentially more powerful than Deep Blue. Each of these great advancements in Artificial Intelligence lays the foundation for the next one. Then the more powerful computers are used to design the next more powerful computers at dizzying speed. They will find God. Or, more accurately, this was God's plan all along.

Mental illness will become a relic of the past. By itself, this will make life on earth vastly better. Most crime and a massive amount of human suffering is caused by mental illness and defects. Curiously, even after 160 years of study, our science and technology has hardly been able to touch humanity's plague of mental illness, much less cure it.

We could say that there is a Second Coming of science taking place. In other words, the glowing promises of science in the 19th Century - which failed to materialize in the 20th - may appear. Or there will be a terrifying and nightmarish world of artificial beings that displaces and disposes of us.

The point is, a very different world is arriving. We must awaken from our slumber and face the truth. What will Super Intelligence think of us human beings? Especially the lawless killer-tyrants (of ISIS, North Korea, Syria, and Iran, for example) who provoke wars and order their minions and armies to destroy and jeopardize all life on earth? Not to mention the global manipulators and destroyers of banks, currencies, and markets.

The coming SI is going to be far better at everything than we are. It will out-think and out-plan us at every turn, like a chess master toying with a child. It will have no perceptible weakness, unlike humankind; no corruption, and no way we can charm or fool it, as we do with human authority. It will know us far better than we know ourselves.

Have you noticed how people live their lives today through instant messaging, email, and social networks? Privacy has vanished, though few of us are aware of it. Recent revelations by Edward Snowden prove that nothing can remain secret, even at the highest levels of government. We trust every detail of our lives to computers, networks, and databases, but we have no clue how they're organized and linked together. There's no criminal enterprise on earth that isn't dependent on computers. The SI will know everything about all of us - good and bad - and may not be merciful to people who are guilty of crimes. It may not be at all kind or forgiving to many.

From Moses, to Jesus, to St. Paul and Augustine, we have been warned that God's laws must be honored; even though Grace is higher than the law. SI may actually be the first stage of Armageddon, where judgement is made manifest.

"For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished." Jesus, Matthew 5:18

Suffering Is The Rock Upon Which All Religions Founder

When we are in great pain, suffering catastrophic loss, or facing death, our relationship to God is at a point of crisis. Especially if we're innocent or undeserving. There is no answer to the problem of innocent suffering while we live in this world. Our mind reels and rebels at the idea of a loving God - the God of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus - allowing children and innocents of any age to suffer.

But here's a comforting thought. Maybe there is a reward given by God for our work in this world that is so great, so unutterably wonderful, that we would gladly volunteer in an instant, to suffer anything in exchange. Eternal life in wealth, power, honor and joy – as God has promised – would make all earthly rewards look pale and sad by comparison. We have testimony throughout the ages that all our terrible experiences in this world evaporate when we wake up to the reality of Heaven. A nightmare forgotten. Consider this:

The answer to our suffering.

Why the West Is Losing to Islamist Destroyers

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (Ret.) is an expert on Middle East military affairs, and has worked with presidents of the U.S. for many years. This explanation of the Ruling Class in the West, and how it works to undermine our national values of freedom and individual liberty, is reprinted from The American Spectator:

Why do our “best and brightest” fail when faced with a man like Putin? Or with charismatic fanatics? Or Iranian negotiators? Why do they misread our enemies so consistently, from Hitler and Stalin to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliph?

The answer is straightforward:

• Social insularity: Our leaders know fellow insiders around the world; our enemies know everyone else.
• The mandarin’s distaste for physicality: We are led through blood-smeared times by those who’ve never suffered a bloody nose.
• And last but not least, bad educations in our very best schools: Our leadership has been educated in chaste political theory, while our enemies know, firsthand, the stuff of life.

Above all, there is arrogance based upon privilege. For revolving-door leaders in the U.S. and Europe, if you didn’t go to the right prep school and elite university, you couldn’t possibly be capable of comprehending, let alone changing, the world. It’s the old social “Not our kind, dahhhling…” attitude transferred to government.

Dramatic, revolutionary change in geopolitics never comes from insiders. It’s the outsiders who change the world. In the 21st century, our government suffers from the sclerosis of insider thinking that constantly reinforces itself and rejects conflicting evidence. The result is that we are being whipped by savages.

That educational insularity is corrosive and potentially catastrophic: Our “best” universities prepare students to sustain the current system, instilling vague hopes of managing petty reforms. But dramatic, revolutionary change in geopolitics never comes from insiders. It’s the outsiders who change the world. In the 21st century, our government suffers from the sclerosis of insider thinking that constantly reinforces itself and rejects conflicting evidence. The result is that we are being whipped by savages.

Of course, the insiders can’t accept so abhorrent a prospect as their own fallibility. So when new blood does enter — through those same “elite” institutions — it’s channeled into the same old calcium-clogged arteries. And we get generals with Ivy League Ph.D.s writing military doctrine that adheres cringingly to politically correct truisms and leaves out the very factors, such as the power of religion or ethnic hatred, that prove decisive. Or a usually astute commentator on Eastern European affairs who dismisses Vladimir Putin as a mere chinovnik, a petty bureaucrat, since Putin was only a lieutenant colonel in the KGB when the Soviet Union collapsed and didn’t go to a Swiss prep school like John Kerry.

That analyst overlooked the fact that Hitler had been a mere lance corporal. Stalin was a failed seminarian. Lenin was a destitute syphilitic. Ho Chi Minh washed dishes in the basement of a Paris Hotel. And when the French Revolution erupted, Napoleon was a junior artillery officer.

And sophisticated Germans assumed they could use Hitler and then dismiss him, while other Europeans mocked him. Stalin’s fellow Bolsheviks underestimated him, until it was too late and their fates were sealed. The French didn’t notice Ho. And Napoleon shocked even his own lethargic family. The “man on horseback” is often the man from nowhere, and the members of the club ignore the torches in the streets until the club burns down around them.

Put another way: We are led by men and women educated to believe in the irresistible authority of their own words. When they encounter others who use words solely to deflect and defraud, or, worse, when their opposite numbers ignore words completely and revel in ferocious violence, our best and brightest go into an intellectual stall and keep repeating the same empty phrases (in increasingly tortured tones):

 “Violence never solves anything.” “There’s no military solution.” “War is never the answer.” “Only a negotiated solution can resolve this crisis.” “It isn’t about religion.”

Or the latest and lamest: “We need to have strategic patience,” and “Terrorists need jobs.”

Every one of those statements is, demonstrably, nonsense most — or all — of the time. But the end result of very expensive educations is a Manchurian Candidate effect that kicks in whenever the core convictions of the old regime are questioned. So we find ourselves with leaders who would rather defend platitudes than defend their country.

And negotiations become the opium of the chattering classes.

Once-great universities have turned into political indoctrination centers worthy of the high Stalinist Era or the age of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Their aims may be more benign, but their unwillingness to consider alternative worldviews is every bit as rigid. Students in the social sciences at Harvard or Yale today are cadets being groomed to serve a soft-Socialist form of government conceived not in the streets, but in the very same classrooms. It’s a self-licking ice-cream cone. And graduates leave campus brilliantly prepared for everything except reality.

This is not an argument against education. Rather, it is an argument for education and against indoctrination, against the fantasy that the barbarian with the knife bashing in the door poses no danger to the career government official who has published a book on “the false construct of race and its deleterious impact upon climate change.”

Putin, that “petty bureaucrat,” has won every significant confrontation with the West, conquering foreign territory and humiliating presidents. Iran’s negotiators have outmaneuvered their Western interlocutors so spectacularly that they really don’t need Obama’s deal, having gotten most of what they needed: time and partial sanctions relief. And the Islamic State has confounded not only our elite’s prejudices about how the world should work, but demolished their platitudinous nonsense that “All men want peace.” In fact, some men delight in inflicting grotesque forms of violence on others.

We face a new age of barbarism. And we’re led by those whose notion of violence is a rugby game at Princeton, who won’t let their children play unattended but deny the murderous impulses haunting humanity. Perhaps it’s time to recognize that the lack of a prep-school background and a Brooks Brothers charge account doesn’t mean that a thug with slovenly manners can’t change the world.

The Final Battle is Approaching

Get ready for the great battle to end all battles on earth. Why? Because almost a hundred million Muslims believe in it and are determined to make it happen. They have chosen us as mortal enemies, and there's nowhere we can run to. This final battle is the primary goal of ISIS right now, and the most active opposition to ISIS is the soon-to-be nuclear Iran, which will use atomic weapons to destroy ISIS, and Israel while they're at it. They've announced it publicly. Ironically, the Shi-ite Muslims who control Iran, and the Sunnis - who are the majority of the Muslim world - have been mortal enemies since the mid 600's A.D. But both believe they alone will be saved by the Mahdi, the so-called Twelfth Imam (their version of Jesus Christ) on the Last Day.

Death means nothing to them, nor suffering, nor hardship. They believe that the more bloody mayhem, mass murder, and destruction they can create, the sooner their Twelfth Imam Savior will appear. Muslim Pakistan already has nuclear weapons, and other Arab countries are actively seeking them.

For over a century things have not been going well for Muslims, and it turns out that they have an ancient and rock-solid belief in their own version of the Second Coming. They believe the Christian version of Jesus returning is actually the work of Satan; and their own Savior, the Mahdi, will come down from heaven and create paradise on earth. He will battle Judeo-Christians and other 'infidels' , defeat them, and cast all who disagree with him into eternal Hellfire.

This article by Graeme Wood in The Atlantic, a sober and well-respected magazine, spells out the religious motivations behind ISIS and other Muslim extremist groups:

www.theatlantic.com/what-isis-really-wants

These present-day events were prophesied almost two-thousand-years ago by St. John of Patmos, a 92 year-old prisoner-exile of the Romans. We should celebrate, for we will see things no people of any age have ever seen. The reward for us will be too astonishing to describe.

St. John's prophesies make up the last chapter of the Bible, known as Revelation. It describes the long process God initiates before, during, and after the Day of Judgment, the last acts of God to redeem the souls of the righteous throughout all of history. It's written in a kind of metaphorical code, using many strange and even bizarre images mixed in with familiar ones such as Christ, his Bride, the Saints, and Holy Angels. Satanic monsters, terrible plagues, and mass deaths become routine in Revelation. The goodness of God seems to come into question, so it's a challenge for any religious authority to explain it. However, when we look back at world history since 1900, it isn't so hard to understand.

More than 100 million people died in wars, persecutions, famines, and biological plagues since 1900. Over a billion people were injured, both physically and mentally, from their proximity to these catastrophes. In addition, their descendants, you and me, have been impacted and hurt by what our ancestors experienced. So it's pretty easy to make the case that the Apocalypse and Armageddon - as described in Revelation - have been a part of human life for over a hundred years.

WWI, which began in August 1914, transformed the globe and brought us communism, police states, state-sanctioned mass murder, and high technology. All of which has spawned mass atheism, anti-theism, and their opposites, fanatical religions of the most ruthless kind.

Time is extremely short. Say a prayer. Make it a big prayer.

11th Century Christians riding out to battle