"In fact, scientists calculate that Obama has four years in which to save the world."From a short piece in which Newsnight's Science Editor Susan Watts talks about "the environmental challenges President Barack Obama faces." (The Watts What blog has much of the piece transcribed with other comments.)
This piece is a true classic from the BBC. Obama is going to save the world from destruction unlike that nasty President Bush who ignored scientists and listened to religion instead, leading him to oppose stem-cell research and thereby encouraging people not to accept science but to believe in the bible instead of evolution. But the scientists are now free again. Huzzah!
Some helpful points:
- President Bush did not have a distaste for stem-cell research. He opposed embryonic stem-cell research which involves the destruction of human embryos.
- You do not have to be a religious person to oppose embryonic stem-cell research, simply a person who does not agree with the destruction of human life.
- Opposing embryonic stem-cell research does not imply opposition to science, only opposition to the immoral use of science. (We all know of immoral uses of science in the first half of the twentieth century in certain parts of Europe.) In fact, most opponents of embryonic stem-cell research are keen to promote adult stem-cell research.
- You can believe in the bible without rejecting the idea of evolution. Many Christians and indeed many scientists do. Among the Christians, we might mention Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.
18 comments:
Being a member of the Anglican communion, and also attending daily prayer in an interdenominational university chapel with a liberal ethos, I have been finding a disturbing general tendency among the clergy to treat President Obama, both in prayer and preaching, as though he were, indeed, a new messiah. When, last week, at the more conservatively minded church I attend on Sundays, I mentioned that it was a relief not to have to listen to a sermon or prayers that attributed all good in the world to the new president of the USA , one member of the congregation wryly commented: "Oh, we're still quite happy with the old Messiah here!"
Or is he perhaps the Antichrist? Bring back Cardinal Biffi. A humanist, an environmentalist, with vision and religion. Persuasive, plausible, loves Jesus and you and me...?
Now, I don't think Obama is the Anti Christ but I have been looking for an opportunity to post the Prophesy of St Nilus, whom I read about in Fr Thwaites article on the Family Rosary.
PROPHECY OF ST. NILUS
Realizing that St. Nilus is scarcely known to a large part of the Church, a brief sketch of his life, taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia (1911 copyright edition), is related below:
St. Nilus was one of the many disciples and fervent defenders of St. John Chrysostom. He was an officer at the Court of Constantinople, married, with two sons. While St. John Chrysostom was patriarch, before his exile (398-403), he directed Nilus in the study of Scripture and in works of piety. St. Nilus left his wife and one son and took the other, Theodulos, with him to Mt. Sinai to be a monk. The Bishop of Eleusa ordained both St. Nilus and his son to the priesthood. The mother and other son also embraced the religious life in Egypt.
From his monastery at Sinai, St. Nilus was a well-known person throughout the Eastern Church; by his writings and correspondence, he played an important part in the history of his time. He was known as a theologian, Biblical scholar and ascetic writer, so people of all kinds, from the emperor down wrote to consult him. His numerous works, including a multitude of letters, consist of denunciations of heresy, paganism, abuses of discipline and crimes, of rules and principles of asceticism, especially maxims about the religious life. He warns and threatens people in high places, abbots and bishops, governors and princes, even the emperor himself, without fear.
THE PROPHECY:
After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century, the people of that time will become unrecognizable. When the time for the Advent of the Antichrist approaches, people's minds will grow cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonor and lawlessness will grow stronger. Then the world will become unrecognizable. People's appearances will change, and it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to their shamelessness in dress and style of hair. These people will be cruel and will be like wild animals because of the temptations of the Antichrist. There will be no respect for parents and elders, love will disappear, and Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left. At that time, the morals and traditions of Christians and of the Church will change. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds and murder will rule in society.
At that future time, due to the power of such great crimes and licentiousness, people will be deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which they received in Holy Baptism and equally of remorse.
The Churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious pastors, and woe to the Christians remaining in the world at that time; they will completely lose their faith because they will lack the opportunity of seeing the light of knowledge from anyone at all. Then they will separate themselves out of the world in holy refuges in search of lightening their spiritual sufferings, but everywhere they will meet obstacles and constraints. And all this will result from the fact that the Antichrist wants to be Lord over everything and become the ruler of the whole universe, and he will produce miracles and fantastic signs. He will also give depraved wisdom to an unhappy man so that he will discover a way by which one man can carry on a conversation with another from one end of the earth to the other. At that time men will also fly through the air like birds and descend to the bottom of the sea like fish. And when they have achieved all this, these unhappy people will spend their lives in comfort without knowing, poor souls, that it is deceit of the Antichrist. And, the impious one! – he will so complete science with vanity that it will go off the right path and lead people to lose faith in the existence of God in three hypostases.
Then the All-good God will see the downfall of the human race and will shorten the days for the sake of those few who are being saved, because the enemy wants to lead even the chosen into temptation, if that is possible... then the sword of chastisement will suddenly appear and kill the perverter and his servants.
This is also very relevant to your next posting about the Grandparents having their grandchildren taken away and handed to homosexuals.
I don't know whether the Blackfen Liturgy Committee has settled yet on a Worship Song to express the faith experience of the gathered community attending the Hermeneutic of Continuity 1 Million party next weekend, but what about the following:
Lord the light of Your love is shining
In the midst of the darkness, shining
Barack, Light of the world, shine upon us
Set us free by the truth You now bring us
Shine on me
Shine on me
Shine, Barack, shine
Fill this land with Obama's glory
Blaze, Spirit, blaze,
Set our hearts on fire
Flow, river, flow
Flood the nations with grace and mercy
Send forth Your Word, Lord
And let there be light
Obama, I come into Your presence
From the shadows into Your radiance
By the blood I may enter Your brightness
Search me, try me, consume all my darkness
Shine on me
Shine on me
Shine, Barack, shine
Fill this land with Obama's glory
Blaze, Spirit, blaze,
Set our hearts on fire
Flow, river, flow
Flood the nations with grace and mercy
Send forth Your Word, Lord
And let there be light
Shine, Barack, shine
Fill this land with Obama's glory
Blaze, Spirit, blaze,
Set our hearts on fire
Flow, river, flow
Flood the nations with grace and mercy
Send forth Your Word, Lord
And let there be light
Yes, Obama is going to save the world from so-called "global warming" by cranking up his thermostat while telling the rest of us to turn ours down:
... Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.
“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”
***
Many people in America, especially where I live, would like to heat their homes to a comfort level where sweaters and coats become unnecessary. However, Obama and the Democrats want to impose ruinous taxes and penalties on energy production and fuel that produces carbon dioxide — a naturally-occurring element — and make that choice economically unbearable for us. In fact, candidate Obama spoke directly to that end in May of this year:
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.
“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.
Obama to the rest of us peasants: Do as I say, not as I do.
Dear Father Tim
Here's one which we've been pondering over the months.
If one allows aspects of evolutionary theory to be true, and we heard Fr. Nesbitt present an articulate case for this last year in St. Albans, how do we account for death appearing in creation before sin? Is this applied somehow retroactively - and if so is that either reasonable or just?
Sorry if this sounds dopey or fundamentalistic - but it is a genuine thought which we have pondered without resolution for some while!
In Christ
Alan and Angeline
Elizabeth - yes, that is quite striking.
Auricularius - that is too good to use in my parish. I'll have to pass it on to the Diocesan Music Committee.
Alan and Angeline - it is death as the separation of soul and body that is a part of the penalty for original sin. It is possible to have death within life below man as a part of the natural state. It is difficult to conceive what life for us would have been like without original sin. Perhaps our life on earth would have ended in a way similar to that of our Blessed Lady.
Even before I read the comments, this post brought the idea of the antichrist into my mind. With or without the antichrist there will be tough and worrying times ahead and President Obama's policies aren't going to make things any easier.
Perhaps He isn't the Antichrist (after all, there are so many to choose from) but he is a pretty strong contender. At the ("catholic")secondary school at which I work the year 10 students "prepared" a Mass with the "theme" of Leadership (oh I do like a good Mass with a "theme"). Today the chapel was plastered with posters acclaiming the virtuous merits of St Barack. Although it sounds weak, I'm glad I didn't attend. Where is the enlightenment of those RE teachers (not exclusively, but in this case) who should be informed about such things and should be preaching the truth? I have been silenced by the school for speaking out about liturgical and doctrinal heresies, and find it hard to know what action to take. It is no longer an option in this day to claim ignorance of the truth.
father here is an article I posted during the election. the picture was on his web site for a time, which is where i got it.
http://lefleurdelystoo.blogspot.com/2008/09/obama-new-messiah.html
Richard
He an anti-Christ
“You can believe in the bible without rejecting the idea of evolution. Many Christians and indeed many scientists do. Among the Christians, we might mention Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.”
I don't like this post of yours at all. I also think, despite whatever intellectual stake you have in the argument(s), that it has anything of spiritual value at all, the contrary is my belief.
Why so? Firstly, 'without rejecting' is most likely to be read as accepting. Secondly, because to most readers the 'theory of evolution' is that spread by the popular media, i.e. that life, including human life, evolved by blind chance. I'll charitably hazard a guess that this is NOT the belief that you believe recent and current Popes have held. Nonetheless, such comments from you or Our Holy Fathers spread and encourage disbelief when expressed in simplistic terms. My counsel would be to leave this less than a hundred year old theory alone, it will wither over the course of millennia, of that I’m sure.
Congratulations to Auricularius in summing up the thoughts of many who voted for this wind-bag and also even more who did not have a vote but wanted to join in the euphoria.
There have been several calls for prayer for Obama and I find it very difficult to bring myself to pray for such a man. I really have had to wrestle with my conscience but finally I do recall most clearly that Our Lord demands of us to love our enemies and I do see Obama as an enemy.
My prayers for Obama run along the lines of imploring Our Lady to stop him unleashing all the vile legislation which he intends in his promotion of the culture of death.
I pray that if he cannot be converted then at least he may be prevented from furthering the evil he intends.
JARay
Heinz - the position that I hold on evolution is well set out in the Faith pamphlet Can we be sure God exists?. Here is a link to some other pamphlets on the subject.
The Republican National Committee now has a very significantly more anti-life and anti-family Chairman than has the Democratic National Committee. Democrats need to be out there, asking moral and social conservatives directly, “What have the Republicans ever done for you?”
And they need to be presenting President Obama, entirely accurately, as the true heir of those Republicans who called for Europe to revert to pre-1914 borders and thus end the First World War, an outcome which would have precluded both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Of that rural and Western half of the Republican Party which supported the New Deal. Of Eisenhower, with his even-handed approach to Israel and the Palestinians, and with his denunciation of the military-industrial complex.
Of those Congressional Republicans whose votes passed Civil Rights in the face of Dixiecrat resistance. Of Nixon, who ended the Vietnam War as President Obama will end the Iraq War, and who began détente with China as President Obama is beginning détente with Iran (and beyond).
And of Republican opposition to Clinton’s unpatriotic job-exportation, unpatriotic sweatshop-importation, and unpatriotic global trigger-happiness, all continued and expanded by the unpatriotic Bush Administration.
The one missing link is Afghanistan. No one voted for President Obama because of his support for the war in Afghanistan. Huge numbers did so in spite of it, in order to end the war in Iraq.
He should announce the fact, for so it is, that, just as the 9/11 attackers included no Afghans but numerous Saudis, so that attack was ordered and funded, not from some cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan, but from one of the more opulent corners of the Arabian Peninsula.
Among very many other things, he might then need to replace the Saudi, Kuwaiti and Emirati hired help – and loyal consort of the Great Unpatriot – whom he has appointed as Secretary of State. What’s not to like?
Any prayers of mine for Obama would be in the context of a requiem.
Thanks Father
Alan and Angeline
One need hardly rehearse that the Republicans have done absolutely nothing about abortion, and were never going to even before they put an abortionist in charge of their party organisation just when the Democrats gave the corresponding job to a pro-lifer.
Whom does Obama owe? That is in many ways (not all, but many) a more important question that what he personally thinks or believes. People who agree with him anyway are going to vote for him anyway. So what?
But Obama won Florida and California, both of which voted that day to reaffirm traditional marriage (actually, that is his own view). He won Colorado, which voted that day to ban legal discrimination against white men. He certainly won Ohio, and probably Missouri as well. That day, both Ohio and Missouri voted not to liberalise gambling. And he won the clear majority of the Catholic vote, plus practically the entire vote of the black church.
Moral and social conservatives put Obama in. They were attracted by his economic populism (including economic patriotism) and by his foreign policy realism. They can put him, and the Democrats running both Houses of Congress, back out again. Or they can keep the Republicans out for a generation, even for ever. But no Republican has noticed.
Every single Congressional Republican has opposed Obama's economic stimulus. Bush's bailouts were fine, yet this is unconscionable. In the same way, Bush had to be backed up to the hilt as "the Commander-in-Chief in time of war". But Obama's decisions on Guantánamo Bay, torture, Iraq, and with any luck Afghanistan, enjoy no such loyalty.
The economic stimulus will be massively to the advantage of rural, Evangelical and Catholic America, just as the New Deal was. Some Republicans had the human decency and the political competence to support the New Deal, however few Evangelicals or, especially, Catholics there may have been among their voters at the time.
Those same Republicans, of course, stood foursquare with the rest of their party in opposing needless foreign entanglements, insisting instead that America should only go to war if attacked (as eventually happened) or in clear and present danger of being attacked.
Today's Republican Party urgently needs to learn the lessons of its own history. Or else it will die, and deserve to die.
Meanwhile, orthodox lay Catholics, in particular, need to have ready a clear list of requirements (that certain things not be done, since any demand that certain things be done would meet greater hostility) to which Obama must sign up if he wants to be re-elected in 2012.
They allowed themselves to be caught napping in 2008. They must not do so again.
Rosa Mystica ora pro nobis!
Post a Comment