Tag Archives: faith and politics

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Here is the link.

Andrew Torba founded Gab in 2016 as a free speech alternative to Facebook:

"We believe that the future of online publishing is decentralized and open," reads a description on its website. "We believe that users of social networks should be able to control their social media experience on their own terms, rather than the terms set down by Big Tech."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/01/11/what-gab-social-network-gaining-popularity-amid-parler-crackdown/6620906002/

About Andrew Torba

Torba is unashamedly Christian and will not do interviews with organizations that are not Christian. (You can listen to the Cross Politic interview with him here, where he explains why). Basically, he doesn't wish to do interviews with those who are hostile to free speech platforms and to Christianity.

Gab was "blamed" for the 2018 synagogue shooting because the shooter had posted on there. The fact that he also posted on Facebook and Twitter was "overlooked" in the race to blame the platform. Torba cooperated with law enforcement agencies and that was also "overlooked". Furthermore, that Gab does not allow calls to or threats of violence was also "overlooked."

The New York Times claimed that the January 6, 2021 riots were organized on that platform. Here's the problem - the Feds say that it was on Twitter and Facebook.

"Big Tech" wants control and they have very deep pockets. Groups that have been cancelled are becoming numerous and Gab is a big target.

Torba's sites have lost their internet provider, are not allowed on the iTunes or Android app stores. They are banned from Visa or Mastercard, and one of the bitcoin companies. PayPal and Stripe have also blocked this group. In other words, Gab has been targeted.

Gab does not sell advertisements (you are not the product) and does not allow calls to violence or pornography on the platform. "Facebook was responsible for 94% of the 69 million child sex abuse images reported by US technology companies last year."

Torba has a grand vision for his companies, including a Christian marketplace, they already have a browser (Dissenter) and more.

Gab News...

See more of the "Free Speech Platforms" series

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Sermon Notes: Imprecations Intro-Part 1

Our pastor is preaching a series on imprecatory prayers and there's a lot unpack. The first point was "we are here" and the first point of the first point was "The Equality Act"

February 7, 2021 - we are here with the Equality Act

the "equality act" would add "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the list of civil right protection. H.R.5 is expected to be reintroduced in 2021.

Implications of The Equality Act

...continue reading →

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I've been quoting this, and since it's now PAGES back, I want it posted here so I can find it quickly:

To the Progressive Socialist Totalitarian Left, Christianity is a threat to the primacy of the State. The Totalitarian Left believes the Authority of the State must be absolute, because the left can control all the apparatuses of the State and impose their moral beliefs on the population. For example, the belief that unborn children can be sacrificed in the name of personal convenience and the sick and elderly can be sacrificed to save the State money. Christianity, on the other hand, teaches that there is a Higher Moral Authority than the State; and that the conscience of the individual… not the Collective Will as embodied in the State and its organs.

It isn’t necessarily because of Gay Marriage, per se, but Gay Marriage is a cudgel that the left can use against Christianity; forcing Christians to bow to the State (e.g. being forced to participate in gay weddings as bakers, photographers, and florists). The ultimate goal is to eradicate Christianity and its tenet that each individual has a conscience and a moral imperative.

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UK: Creator of children's character "Fireman Sam" detained at airport for noting that a veiled Muslim woman passed through security without showing her face

Nuff said.

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Ultrasounds Already Part of VA Planned Parenthood Abortion Procedure

Excuse me.  If a woman already has her feet in the stirrups, waiting for all the instruments that are used doing an abortion - is she really (REALLY????) going to equate an ultrasound with "rape"?  What a slap in the face to all of the women who have truly gone through the trauma of rape.

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Ouroboros: "Hate Speech" Worse Than Infanticide?

my favorite line?

[Cough] If I knew at the beginning it was this easy to take his family jewels and put them in a thimble, I wouldn’t have bothered reading his defense.

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Trashing Tricare - because our military doesn't sacrifice enough already.

The Obama administration’s proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits untouched. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials. Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed to increase the enrollment in Obamacare’s state-run insurance exchanges.

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The ‘Taxpayer Subsidized Clean Energy Company Losing Money and Laying Off Workers While Execs Get Raises’ Story of the Day.

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The $4 Billion Obamacare Slush Fund for Progressives

To appease liberal Democrats pushing for the so-called “public option” (the full frontal government takeover of our health care system), the White House settled for the creation of a $6 billion network of nonprofit “CO-OPs” that will “compete” with private insurers. It’s socialized medicine through the side door. House Republicans sliced about $2 billion from the slush fund in last spring’s budget deal and proclaimed the program dead. Hardly.

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"We've laid down our blood to have a free exercise of religion in this country and will continue to do so."

Working from a variety of sources, I really don't wonder very much what the motive is.

“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent.” Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

The claim:

Just as the spectacle of an all-male Senate Judiciary Committee’s stern questioning of her in the 1990s drew women voters to the polls, these lawmakers and women’s groups say Thursday’s House hearing on the Obama administration’s contraception rule — with an all-male panel testifying before a largely male committee — could provoke the same kind of response

 

First thing:  There were two panels, the second panel included two women.

Second thing:  it's not about contraception, it's about religious freedom and it's fitting that religious leaders were on the panel.

"The real issue here, it's not birth control; it's religious liberty, it's freedom of conscience, [and] it's the freedom of individuals and their churches to determine their own positions and their own policies about contraception and abortion,"

From the Catholic News Agency (quoting Pamela Haag):

“The phrase 'women’s health' in the birth control dispute is the latest nimble euphemism,” author and blogger Pamela Haag wrote in a Feb. 17 essay published on the “Marriage 3.0” blog.

Access to contraception, she said, “isn’t really about my 'health.' It’s not principally about the management of ovarian cysts or the regulation of periods.”

“Birth control isn’t about my health unless by 'health' you mean, my capacity to get it on, to have a happy, joyous sex life that involves an actual male partner,” wrote Haag, criticizing White House supporters for discussing contraceptives mainly as “preventive services” for women's health.

Even the folks who support the mandate (who are not following the administrations party line) know that it's not about health, it's about the ability of women to have sex without responsibility or consequences.

From Timothy George and Chuck Colson , via Christianity Today:

But Catholic institutions aren't the only ones affected by this mandate. Prison Fellowship, for example, which employs 180 people, could not purchase insurance for its employees that covers abortifacients. Nor could the world's largest Christian outreach to prisoners and their families afford the fines we would incur.

Three years ago, when we co-authored the Manhattan Declaration, we predicted that the time would come when Christians would have to face the very real prospect of civil disobedience—that we would have to choose sides: God or Caesar.

Certainly for the Catholics and for many of us evangelicals, that time is already upon us.

Rev. Matthew Harrison, president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod:

Harrison's goal Thursday, he said, was to tell Congress to "get the federal government out of matters of conscience for religious people, particularly in life issues where there's long-standing moral and ethical church precedent."

But he also wanted to drive home the intense feeling of alienation that, he said, conservative people of faith feel under the Obama administration. He said he would rather go to jail than comply with even the modified mandate, and that he would "give up my sons to fight" for the First Amendment.

On Friday, he explained those comments: "We've laid down our blood to have a free exercise of religion in this country and will continue to do so."

Harrison told the committee of the charitable work of the Missouri Synod and its members, calling the church "a machine which produces good citizens for this country, and at tremendous personal cost."

The members of his church "work, pay taxes, are charitable and responsible, take care of their children, participate in their communities and government, and serve in military," Harrison said. "The state should be interested in religion for this purpose: We produce good citizens. So stop attacking us. We are in every way a blessing for this country. We feel attacked for our fundamental convictions as if we're a detriment to our country. And that is a lie."

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INDIANOLA, Iowa – Texas Gov. Rick Perry clarified his newly transformed position on abortion today, stating that the life of the mother is the only exception in which he’d support abortion.

He's being criticized by liberal bloggers for this "flip flop" - but if any of us are so set in our ways that we cannot shift our views after an interaction with another person who can make a good case for changing...well, ask if the same liberal blogger would have called it a "flip flop" if the flip and flopped in the pro-abortion direction?

I'm going to use words that I have used.

The circumstances of a person's conception does not dictate the worth of their humanity.

Even so, for the woman who finds herself in that circumstance, I can see why she would consider abortion a viable alternative to life.  Personal conviction may not need to dictate public policy.  Sometimes it does, but in the case of rape and/or incest...EGR.

 

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Two paragraphs that struck me, given some of the conversations I have in various places.

In the past several years this word has begun to be overused, to our detriment. “Hate” is something deep and serious. It is instantly recognizable and intends to wound. But recently people have begun to fling this word around every time someone disagrees with them. “Hate” is now intended to mean anything seen as “intolerant” or “judgmental,” since nowadays the only sin most people believe in is believing in sin. So basically, if you disagree with it, you can call it “hate,” and your opponent, fearing that they might be seen as hateful, will probably stop arguing.

I have conversations with people who support "gay rights" and people who support "abortion rights" - "hate" is one of the first weapons to come out of their arsenal.

It is incredibly important that we argue honestly and with courage. Make no mistake: calling you intolerant, judgmental, or hateful is intended to shut you up. The PC police have been so effective that many people are now afraid they will be discounted, marginalized or shut down if they don’t play by these new tyrannical speech rules.

My reply to this tactic is that the conversation needs to happen, and that conversation will not take place, if one side of it is silenced.

The link to What To Do With “Hate”