Writes Steve Kirsch:
The Amish didn’t lockdown, social distance, mask, or take a vaccine. It was business as usual. Few died. I offered $2,500 for anyone who could name >5 Amish who died. No takers. Just excuses.
Update (video, see also text here): The Amish followed none of the guidelines, didn’t vaccinate etc. And had, according to Steve Kirsch, an at least 90% lower death rate from Covid.
Found here.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
They don’t want their churches supporting “Extinction Rebellion” or similar groups. Only 17 percent supported that policy, 50 percent were against. The rest either said they don’t care (18 percent) or didn’t know (12 percent) or declined to answer (3 percent).
56 percent said the churches should concentrate more on their spiritual and pastoral tasks.
51 percent supported the fact that the churches appealed to everyone to get vaccinated against covid.
However, only 43 percent (a relative majority) thought closing churches during lockdown was a good idea (30 percent disagreed)
15 percent say they are definitely going to leave the church, a further 21 percent say they are considering leaving.
The relevant article is here.
In this 15 minute video.
Reminds of the “mark of the beast“:
“Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.” (From Revelation 13:16-17)
Thomas R. Schreiner writes about this on crossway.org:
“The beast is not confined to the Roman Empire; it refers to Rome but applies also to every manifestation of evil in all governments throughout history, and also to the final conflict to come at the end.”
Writes Andreas Wailzer:
A Catholic professor blasted Pope Francis, accusing the Pontiff of “destroying the foundations of faith and morals.”
Renowned philosophy professor and intimate friend of Pope John Paul II, Josef Seifert, published an open letter addressed to the cardinals of the Catholic Church, in which he called the bishops of the Church to resist Pope Francis’ his heterodox actions, like the signing of the Abu Dhabi document.
“Pope Francis – I say this with a bleeding heart – is not the ‘guarantor of the faith’, but is constantly increasingly destroying the foundations of faith and morals with this and many other statements and pronouncements,” Seifert wrote.
Continue reading here.
From Deuteronomy 25:
13 Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light. 14 Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. 15 You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 16 For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly.
(I first learnt this when I read Guido Hülsmann’s book “The Ethics of Money Production“)
“Teaching ‘religious literacy’ to state employees would hand yet more influence to the identitarian lobby.“, write the authors Paul Stott and Khalid Mahmood.
Here’s the full article.
The prophet Samuel warned the people of Israel not to have a king. Essentially, he said: “Beware what you wish for.”
From 1 Samuel 8:
10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, ‘This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: he will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plough his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.’
Interestingly however, in an older book (Deuteronomy), God seems to have anticipated that the people will want a king. So he gave some instructions as to what that person was to do once in office:
From Deuteronomy 17:
14 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, ‘Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,’ 15 be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. 16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, ‘You are not to go back that way again.’ 17 He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.
18 When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. 19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees 20 and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.
Listening to a discussion led by Jordan Peterson about Exodus, I heard someone point out (they were talking about prayer) that “thinking” and “thanking” are etymologically related.
I found that confirmed in the online etymology dictionary, here and here:
Old English þencan is the causative form of the distinct Old English verb þyncan “to seem, to appear” (past tense þuhte, past participle geþuht), from Proto-Germanic *thunkjan (source also of German dünken, däuchte). Both are from PIE *tong- “to think, feel” which also is the root of thought and thank.
(PIE I assume stands for “Proto-Indo-European“.)
So, maybe the first thoughts we became aware of were thoughts of gratitude.