History #1

Paige says that history is not worth studying for because it is subjective to the winner, and the facts only come from those winners. The thing is, if this were true, history books would not have bad things to talk about certain topics. One example would be a US history book. If the US wrote the book because they are the “winner”, then why in the world do they include things like the 9/11 or the Civil War? Why do Americans who are the “winners” put things that make the US look weak? If the winners want to look strong they would not include things that are not positive, they would omit them and disregard those things.

There are many events in history that are not only told by the winner but the loser. One such event is the Civil war. We had two different sides fighting for different things. Although the north was the winner, I would say that they both were losers. They both lost things. The north lost many men, had to rebuild a nation that had been torn apart. The south were just losers because they lost the war, yet we have both sides of the story. We have parts of both that make up the history of this terrible war.

Paige, by making this assumption basically says that because the winner wrote history the facts are wrong. The key is that facts are facts. You can’t say that something did not happen just because “winners” wrote it. Instead, we should look deeper into our history and take a look at both sides. We should be the judges of history by doing our own research. Then after hours of work we can decide whether to believe what was written.

The last thing I have to say to Paige is, by you saying that history is written by the “winner”, are you making a statement of fact? The key to this is that if she is, she is contradicting her own religion by doing so. She is being subjective in saying that only the winners write down history.

Economic #2

To answer the question, “why does socialism not work” we must first look at what socialism believes in for Economics. Socialism, mainly Marxism, believes that wealth should be redistributed into the hands of everyone so that each person has equal amounts of money. In essence they believe in a form of communism, in which the government owns everything and hands out money equally to everyone. They are looking to create a utopia in which there is no poor or rich and everyone is equal. Sarah and Mark along with Michel Moore believe that socialism and redistribution could work, but they don’t look at what could possibly go wrong in the equations.

There are many factors that go into why Socialism could, and never will work. The first one is the fact that all humans are innately sinful. We are born with a sinful heart. The issue is not everyone agrees with this first problem, which becomes a problem in and of itself. With the sinful nature how is anything ever going to be equal? Even if you could get all the rich to give their hard earned cash to the government, what is keeping the government from keeping a huge portion of this money without telling anyone? We are all greedy; we all have wants and needs.

The next and probably the greatest issue I see with Socialism is competition. If everything is equal, and everyone is getting the same amount of money, where is the competition in that? People’s drive to succeed will diminish. We will have a society in which no one cares. Lazy people will get just as much as the people who work super hard. That doesn’t seem quite fair. We ran into this exact topic at NYLF-MED when we had a caucus on Universal Health Care. If each doctor is paid the same amount, what is driving those doctors to do better? What is providing them the motivation to come up with new ways to make surgery safer? There will be no motivation to any job. We will become lazy, and maybe even fall into another dark age.

The last and final problem is pride. If you take someone’s things and give them to another, how do you think that person will feel? How do you feel when you get something new that belongs to YOU? Positions are just one way to keep people happy. Having ownership over something gives a man/woman pride. If pride goes away, and there is no spiritual after life, then what is their to live for?

Mr. Moore Interview

In the beginning of this interview, Mr. Moore opens with is first statement that Socialism is Democracy. This is interesting that he would say this because while looking through the idea, it interested me that he would compare socialism to democracy. Socialism is not only just a view of economics, but it also deals with the difference in ownership. Democracy has some ideas that socialism could hold on to be the key difference is in ownership. Under a Democratic society like the US, people are allowed to own property and goods. Under Socialism, the government owns everything and there is no property.

The next thing that Mr. Moore tries to compare actually scared me. He said that all religions are basically Socialism. Then he went on even farther to say the Socialism is Christianity. This scared me even more, especially when he tried to use Jesus as an example. The example he was referring to was how Christ asked people to give money. The thing he left out was the fact that this was not a forced act, but a gift from the people, which does not agree with Socialism what so ever. Another fact is that if Christianity is Socialism, then God would denounce private things. The fact of the matter is that God does not denounce ownership, but asks the exact opposite. The key is, we are called to be stewards of Earth. We are to use the gifts that God has given us to help others. The key is that this again is not a forced act by the government but should be out of want to please God and do what he asks of us. I will grant Mr. Moore the fact that some parts of Christianity may fit to Socialism, but the core belief of Christianity does not.

He also says that Islam is the same as Socialism. Again, Islam has some of the core beliefs as Christianity in stewardship. The key of Islam is that they reject both Capitalism and Socialism. “Islamic economics rejects socialism’s negation of private property, but also rejects capitalism’s alleged absolute view of private property” (Noebel 364). Can three worldviews be the same when they all have different beliefs? It doesn’t make any sense to me.

To wrap this up I have a few questions to Mr. Moore. What is your view of how in the Old Testament, land was to go back to the original owner after 50 years? If the bible and Christianity are socialistic, wouldn’t that land be owned by the state and not on single person? If there is no ownership in the bible, then why did God say that the Israelites were allowed to harvest part of their land for themselves and then give just of portion to the poor, orphans, and widows, why does God allow them to even have part of the crop for themselves?

Secular Government

In today’s society, there is one word that has been stirred up quite a bit in the world, and that is globalization. The idea that the world has one unified government in which there are one set of rules. Globalization is especially important to a secular group because it is a way to institute a rule that there is no religion.

Secular law would be one unified law that creates a life without any role of religion. There are a couple issues with this, the first being as Christians, we do not want people to take our right to say that God created us. In the secular law, there is no God and thus religion is unneeded. A quote from the book says that a secular law would be, “A non-religious political body that would make, interpret, and enforce a set of international laws” (Noebel 333).

Not only do Secular Humanists want a unified government, but also Marxists and Islam as well want a unified government. The key in this is that there are so many religions in our world an I see complications because of the differing views. There will never be a true unified government until the return of Christ because of the sinful nature. Humans will always have rule breakers, people who won’t follow the rules.

Along with differing views, everyone will have differing morals. What is stopping parents to teach their kids their moral ethics? They will see how their parents act and be just as they act. We see this today in a non-unified world. There will always be people with differing morals and convictions, which make it impossible for a unified government.

I believe that if we had a unified government we would see the same kinds of things we are seeing today in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt. They were under a “unified” leader which is exactly what we would be under with a unified government. What is going to stop people from doing exactly what they are doing now? The would will turn into chaos even though people think it won’t.

Abortion # 2

I would agree with portions of this argument, the problem is that people who are for pro-choice miss some of the bigger pictures. The first is that although a mother has the kid and does not abort it, does not mean that the mother must keep it. A very viable option that is overlooked a great percentage of the time is adoption. A kid can be adopted and thus solves the problem of the mom having to take on the extra responsibility that a child comes with. Another one going along with that is family. The teen still has a family who, for the most part, could contribute to the health and welfare of the child. I personally know of a family whom daughter got pregnant while still in high school. She wanted to still have the opportunity to go to college and so the mom and dad took on the responsibility of watching and taking care of the kid while she finished up school.

The second part of this question that I will tackle next is divorce. The problem is that most teen mothers don’t get pregnant with a husband in the first place. It usually is with a boyfriend, who in the case of this situation has an obligation to help the mother, whether they get married in the end or not. The boyfriend will have to pay child support but that is no reason to kill a baby in an abortion. The boyfriend got the teen girl into the situation and so should take responsibility for his actions.

I would say that yes there are health risks with having a baby, but the risk of having an abortion is just as great. What if that teen later in life wants to have a baby with her husband, and she can’t because of the health problems that can arise from having an abortion. The problem in today’s society is that we focus on one side of the coin. There are health issues with both choice, but I would say the choice to have an abortion is greater. Not only can an abortion have dramatic effects on the reproductive system, but it can also have dramatic effects on the teen mother psychologically as well. The thought of killing a baby is very traumatizing. On average most women who have an abortion suffer from some kind of posttraumatic stress disorder because of the abortion.

I would have to say that the statement about parental care would vary. It all depends on the family support that the mother has. If her parents are willing to help support her and to help her take care of the baby, not only can she still live some kind of life but also does not have to hold the entire burden of a kid. On the opposite side, if parents don’t want to have anything to do with the kid this puts the girl into a very sticky situation especially when the boyfriend also doesn’t want to help in any way also. I would say if the mother has good parents they will be willing to help her and that she will not have to many problems but on the same side she could have problems. It all comes down to communication.

LAW 4

Equality and justice are words that are thrown around quite a bit in the area of law, especially in the view of Critical Legal Studies. CLS is looking to create justice and equality by not following the normal social ways. They believe that non-conventional approaches to law work better than how we are set up in today’s society and believe that how we are running law today is not right. They believe that we are oppressing the people and want to get rid of those who are over them. As for a definition of equality, today we say equality is those who have more give to the poor so that they can have the same amount of money as the rich. This means that equality is looking to equal out how society is today. To do this CLS lawyers are trying unconventional ways of overturning the law and trying to get rid of laws that we have today. They believe that equality not only should be found in class but also in rights, as in homosexuality and other rights that are not to this day acknowledged. Christians know that these things are wrong and they should not try and get involved in the changing of marital laws, but CLS lawyers believe that because the people feel like society looks down on them they should change the laws to give them something to feel good about.

When Christians think of justice and having justice they usually think of a murderer getting what he disserves by giving him the death penalty, or being rude and mean to homosexuals. The opposite is actually the case. God calls us to help the orphans and the widows. He wants us to help those who truly need our help. To get justice we are to love people and show them God’s love. We are called to do what we know is right. The Holy Spirit resides in us and through this, God gives us a conscience that tells us what is right and wrong. God calls us to not change our government to drastically change the way we live, but to help those who feel oppressed and to give them God’s love so that they no longer feel such a way. Not only are we called to love others, but God also tells us to not be of the world and be polluted by it. We are told to be good examples to others so that maybe one day we can have a society that is better than we have today

Law 3

It is true. There has been much debate about Shari’a law, and there are many differences to the way it is approached and viewed. As Christians, we hold that our law is from God. He set up rules that are needed. By, God setting up rules to follow he has ultimately shown us how we are to live to be like Him. We will never be perfect as Christ and God are but we must strive to be as close as possible. As Christians we view God’s laws as his way for us to live better lives. God didn’t just set up laws to be oppressive, but to help make life better, whether that is sanitation or for other reasons. God’s law is perfect, the problem with the world is that we aren’t, and never will be. Humans are sinful, depraved souls. Ultimately, Christians use the law that God set up to get to know God better. We can see how God ultimately is and how he wishes we would live.

On the contrary, Shari’a law is totally different. Muslim’s believe that their law was given by their God, Allah, but the issue is that they don’t believe that it can help them get closer to him. They believe that Allah is unknowable and so ultimately there is no true reference to how they must be followed. These rules are more strictly oppressive laws that force people to do what they say without a chance of getting to know or “see” their god. One of the other major problems with Shari’a law is that IT IS oppressive. There is no sense of freedom, whether that is speech, assembly, petition or religion. They MUST follow what the rules say and that is final. Even for a Muslim woman, there is oppression. They are seen as less valuable that a cow. That is contradictory to Christianity. Christianity holds that man and women are created equal and have roles that each are called to perform. There is no value to a woman. That is how Christianity and Islam are different.

LAW 2

I think that in some instances the law can be determined or interpreted by us. The problem with this statement I see is in the word limited. When limited is used it means that there is no outside interpretation. There is no higher authority than the government set up for us in today’s society. We are bound to what our government decides and that is what we must be ultimately satisfied with, that is why the word limited scares me.

In a non-limited view, God can be present. God ultimately was our creator and thus is given the authority to create rules for us as humans. Throughout the bible he laid out laws that must be followed, like the Ten Commandments or other rules that he placed on us. In this case there are two separate but also the same laws.

God has created laws that we must follow. These laws are ultimately at the discretion of God to be interpreted and chosen. God laid out certain laws that must be followed. He also laid laws that are more like guidelines. One such example would be how God tells us to follow the governments that have been placed upon us. The clause in this law is that if our law goes against the law that God created we must not follow our government’s law and instead follow the laws that God set for us. God tells us that these governments will set up laws that will go against his will. He says that these laws will be created because of our sinful nature. The verse that supports this is in Timothy 1:9-11 which says “We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.”

The inherent problem with humans having the authority to interpret law is the problem of sin. We are sinful creatures and thus we make sinful decisions. This means that even when we try and make the best decision, it still might not be right because of our sin. We must ultimately just give God our promise to let him make the decisions on issues and to follow them with our full heart.

LAW

Sarah said that society creates laws and that is it. To refute this we should look at Genesis. God from the beginning of time has laid down laws that must be followed. The one rule that God gave to Adam and Eve was broken and so they were kicked out of the garden. God again establishes laws when he takes the Israelites out into the desert by giving them the Ten Commandments. The bible is our law. God not only created us, this earth, but he also created rules so that life would be possible. The bible tells us that we are to follow the laws of the established government unless they go against what the bible says. In 1 Peter it says, “Make Jesus your Lord proud of you by being good citizens. Respect the authorities, whatever their level; they are God's emissaries for keeping order. It is God's will that by doing good, you might cure the ignorance of fools... Exercise your freedom by serving God, not by breaking the rules. Treat everyone you meet with dignity. Love your spiritual family. Revere God. Respect the government.” 1 Peter 2:13-17 An example would be Daniel. He did not follow the rules that the king set up and instead, followed what God said to do in the bible. He was then saved by God and became an advisor for the king. God has set up rules that we must follow. By following these rules we not only give an example to others of how to act, but also we please God. People say that Christianity seems strict, but the fact is that we have rules so that we keep ourselves out of trouble.

Sarah says that society has the ability to create its own law. As a Secular humanists Sarah believes in what is known as "positive law" in where society creates their own laws and rules. In their eyes, their laws will create a society that will not have any problems. To keep the problems out, they continually change the laws so that they fit society better. By doing this though, they totally and utterly reject God and His laws.

Feminism

As Christian’s we view feminism as a way to change the contemporary family style. Feminism is changing the way that the family is taken care of. For example, females are now going to work in the work force instead of staying at home to take care of the kids. By doing this they are putting their kids into day cares, which has been shown to affect the child’s growth as well as their relationship with the mother and the father. Feminism is also affecting the way relationships are being held. Mothers are now spending so much time in the work force that they are neglecting the home, thus creating problems at home and leading to many more divorces than before. With this the child sees this and thinks that this is an acceptable way to take care of their problems. As Christian’s we are called to do certain things with certain traits that God gave us. Men love to work and have a job, where as mothers are great at relationships and are continuing to try and lengthen their relationships. Mothers are also called to nurture and protect the children and if they send them to day care they can’t do quite as good of a job at that. On the same lines, men are called to provide and be the little king. We are supposed to keep the family out of trouble. When someone does something wrong, it not only looks bad for the kid but also for the father who is the head of the house. He is supposed to be responsible just as Christ took responsibility for our sins on the cross.

The main problem I see in today’s society is that women like to be the little king and they were not meant to be that. I also see that the men let the women take that responsibility just as Adam let Eve take the little king spot. To fix this problem, men need to take responsibility and to take the wheel. For women they need to keep the men out of trouble and let the man take the lead. God made us in his image but with specific tasks that we would be better at so we should try and keep those roles normal.

Sexist? Homophobic?

Today, society’s idea of relationships and the roles of gender have changed from when it was first introduced in the bible in Genesis. We are driven by the thought that relationships are supposed to make us happy and that is it. The bible has a very logical way of putting how relationships are supposed to go.

The bible does not have a sexist view. In the beginning God created, women from man because man did not have an acceptable partner who could make him happy. God created women to complete man, not only in an intimate way, but also to complete man’s flaws. Things that a man can’t do a woman can do and vice versa. Men are to be the king but we are also supposed to guard the wife. The wife in return is to protect the family. Never get between a mom and her kid. That is true not only in humans but also animals. If we look at character traits of God that are shown in Genesis, not only do men have these but also women. The key is that women might be better at some than others and vice versa again.

To deal with the homophobe problem, I would say that Christian’s should not shun people who have made the decision to be homosexual. We are all humans who were created by God. God made all of us and we are to show his love. As Christians we are called to love everyone even the enemies. We can reach out to these people and show them the right way. Society has changed our mindset and soon if the say that gays can marry there will be not moral behind the word marriage.

That is how I would respond to people who think Christians and the bible are homophobic and sexist.

Government Controlled Teaching

I have mixed emotions about our government controlling what people are learning even at home. If this were to happen it could be very good for Christians, but it could also be very bad if they controlled what people learned about in the way of religion. For us Christians, if the government controlled what people were taught, especially morals, it could be very beneficial. Many people are not taught what is right or what is wrong, and others have a completely different view on what is good. If the government could control what people were learning, it could dramatically change the behavior of people. They would have fundamentals to follow. This could also be bad because, they could do the complete opposite of that and tell parents that they are not allowed to tell their kids what to do and let the kids learn for themselves. They could also restrict what parents taught their kids in the way of religion. One problem I see with the state trying to control what people do at home is how do you make sure that they are doing what you want? Either the government would have to install cameras or they would have to station people in each house. Either way, that encroaches on someone’s privacy, which as of now is against the law.

As Christians, we believe that family is the most important place. It is where kids learn what is right and wrong, and how Christ wants us to live. If that were taken away from us, not only would one generation be hurt, but also every generation after that. I believe that unless the government is looking to control learning to better the Christian worldview, it would be detrimental to the church.