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You have a set of terminal whatabouts

eejoseph, , , , ,

When asked to verify the accuracy of their soundbytes some people see an opportunity to sling accusations at the questioner and/or compare traitors and heroes, felons and innocents, and even Moses to Yeshua. If you compared my sins and crimes to yours  if I confronted you, it would prove you have more than one terminal disease. If you think that there are no incurable diseases you are incontrovertibly in the school and care of an illiterate scholar and a medical quack, certain to wail when the whirlwind of ineffective remedies, bottomless research and development funding, and empty promises of healing stops spinning fatality.

Well, what about dining with strangers and aliens?  No, we dare not.  Well, what about criminal tyrants at the helm of nations and mega corporations? There is nothing to see here. Well, what about God and country as equals?  We swear that there is no power to control our lust for power and curb the exercise of our military. Well, what about the idols we create, and revere daily, weekly, monthly and annually? They might swear that they are idolatry-proof, all because they say they keep the Ten Commandments, or they are convinced that they have checked all the boxes that make them eligible for divine approval. But what about those things that lurk inside both the sinner and the saint? Do you know the thatabout?

What a whirl! Get ready for the last twirl

Empires are typically the result of the forcible gathering of discrete languages, peoples, and nations into a functional whole. That is the principle behind family, village, town, nation. I suppose the expectations are that the rape and plunder of the pirates we love to idolize will continue until every Tom, Dick, and Harry has a kick at the colonial can or empire bucket. Sometimes the bucket comes first, as in the case of Syria trying to overrun Canaan, or even the great Egypt exercising control over trading routes into Palestine and the maritime lanes of global commerce. Note how the successors of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome are still active in global affairs, without actually calling the shots everywhere, as they did when they each dominated the world they knew. They are going to kick the bucket at the same time. But note how Russia and China have cobbled together a number of Asian and East European nations respectively, with no empire emerging. A quick crash is all there is, and it happens without fanfare. Russia and China are past life support, waiting to kick the bucket because, like the great harlot who thinks herself to be beyond poverty and mourning, these will fall in quick time, and people will not know of the descent of these powers into irrelevance because the narrative of “my crime is no worse than yours” will have lulled the global population into accepting mediocrity as greatness and crime as nationalism and patriotism.

Perhaps the best example terminal whataboutism is the rampant self-talk by the very fractured UK and USA about strength when the only whiff of unity is the conspiracy to rob national treasuries, deny the essential movements of migrants, when in fact they have made their fortunes through the monumental forced migration of peoples and the unequal immigration policies they have encouraged.

It may seem that we can all tolerate one or two limitations on our ability to function, but having more death-dealing companions than we have fingers is pretty much the end of the road physically and the beginning of glory if we absorb the daily cross-initiated dying. We have no authorization to observe musch less decide when one of our fellow travellers no longer feels God’s prompts or no longer accepts the divine judgment on unbelief.

Internal and fatal whatabouts

  • evil thoughts
  • sexual immorality (prostitution, porneia)
  • theft
  • murder
  • adultery (Mark 7:21)
  • coveting
  • wickedness
  • deceit
  • sensuality
  • envy (evil eye)
  • slander
  • pride
  • foolishness. (Mark 7:22)

Terminal whatabouts are essential to the hypocrite’s toolkit. A spiritual physician might say “the prognosis is devastating” and “the patient’s inside is caput”.

“Migrant criminal” is an abominable slur against humanity

eejoseph, , , , , , ,

I guess the deep thinkers in the MAGA world – the political pundit sycophants, the conservative pastors, their pastors’ scribes, and all the neo-Pharisees who occupy in Moses chair – do not know that “migrant” defines the Jewish people. Migrant and pilgrim are terms that describe the status of believers in God’s Anointed. Christians have been teaching and singing about this all the way. Dual citizenship is not an anomaly. Christians treasure heavenly and earthly citizenship (). Even if Americans of African descent do not want to see themselves a sojourners, what can we say about the horror addressed in the 14th amendment of the American Constitution? It is an abomination that Europeans have not recognized the nobility and stewardship of the Native People of North America, who move from place to place. We know it is not a crime to be a sojourner: ask Moses, ask the Bedoiun of the SArabian Peninsular, ask the Mongolians, ask the elders of your First Nations, and your will see that criminalizing migrants like MAGA plans to do is an abominable crime.

Migrant by origin and lifestyle

Abraham came from Mesopotamia. As far as we can tell Jacob built a ranch to make tending his flocks a little easier on the workers, but Isaac and Abraham tented all over Canaan. Christians take a lot of leads from Abraham. His rejection of building permanent homes is said to be a reflection of his vision of a lasting city, one (a) not of this order and (b) designed by God.

By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. Hebrews 11:9

But Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house and made booths for his livestock. Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth. Genesis 33:17

For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Hebrews 11:10

Migrants in the modern era

I suppose a few uninformed people like the governor of Florida, De Santis, might want Black people to feel that they came to America as migrants. The slavemasters, for being cruel and domineering, were the ones in chains, they were the ignoramuses and impoverished of mind. Migrants from the Caribbean, Asia, Europe, and Latin America are not worse criminals than the founders of the Australian nation. Look at who is claiming to be civilized now: a gang of plutarchs and oligarchs, all descendants of Europeans, all devoted to a criminal leader cut from the same cloth as they.

All humans migrated from Africa

I guarantee you that the think tanks have forgotten that at one time the planet was quite likely the site of one large land mass, Even if we are not open to the evidence of one land mass, it is beyond dispute that all of earth’s people trace their origin to Africa (except for those who think we have an alien ancestry). So now let us scan the planet and truly think that we are not migrants. Somebody is going to be in the docket for the crime against humanity of equating migrants with crime.

Grabbing headlines with crime and cruelty

eejoseph, , , ,

Do not believe for a second that the world will ever see a credible accounting of who was killed in its war to annihilate a terrorist organization.  War is one thing the United Nations defines with precision and crimes against humanity have gone unpunished since 1948.  Jebusites, marked for extermination in the campaign to take possession of Canaan, lived to see the beating heart of the immigrant community rise with their commercial and reverent contribution.

Marked for death and dispossession

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, (Deuteronomy 7:1, NASB)

Survivors of divine decrees

Now as for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the sons of Judah could not drive them out; so the Jebusites live with the sons of Judah at Jerusalem until this day. (Joshua 15:63, NASB)

Prophet and king who know the truth

So Gad came to David that day and said to him, “Go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” (2 Samuel 24:18, NASB)

The truth ignored with a racist policy

Now when these things had been completed, the princes approached me, saying, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, according to their abominations, those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and the Amorites. (Ezra 9:1, NASB)

Exemplary cities in the reliable accounts

Now King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre. (1 Kings 7:13, NASB), then a wave of unprecedented immigration takes place.  (Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold according to all his desire), then King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. (1 Kings 9:11, NASB)

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22. “Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. (Matthew 11:21-22, NASB)

Contrasts in neighbourly affairs

Compare the policies in the drive International relationships today with those of 2,000 years ago, and see that decency and high marble standards are no longer the priority of the inhabitants of the land flowing with milk and honey.

17. Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place; and there was a large crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, 18. who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured. 19. And all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all. (Luke 6:17-19, NASB)

Bombs and air strikes may impress vengeful people but they solve no problem and undoubtedly corrupt good practice.  Violent crime  and mass murder self defence were never solutions to the human problem of greed, selfishness and idolatry.  So, what else is news?   Human propensity for violence has been growing steadily since the age of Abraham.  Divine judgment is not slack, neither is divine grace for those who respond to supreme generosity

Dangerous and approved bashing

eejoseph,

The famous broadcast network, CNN  is increasingly earning  infamy for allowing Make America Great Again Republicans to voice their stupid and abhorrent opinions without “pushing back”.  But they allow people like Dana Bash, who is probably best at reading the news without comment, to ask senator Reverend Warnock if with all candid he can achieve what he’s proposing in the senate.

In my humble opinion CNN is angling for a Trump presidency because it will sell news and provide grist for the mill.  On the other hand,  when serious politicians win the election,  the  government will run in the background without the sick  blaring noises of fascists and racists and tyrants.

Perhaps Bash does not know what fascism, racism and oppressive violence looks like.  Senator has no evidence that VP Kamala Harris is opposed to justice, law and order.   I am not “just saying”.