To “absquatulate” is to flee, make off, or abscond. The one doing it: absquatulater.
To wit: “Joe Politician, himself a noted and accomplished absquatulater, aided campaign contributor Green Energy Company to absquatulate with millions in taxpayer dollars before company execs perfected their absquatulation by filing for bankruptcy protection.”
Who said vocabulary isn’t cool?
At a busy intersection leading into a small town appear two signs. The first is plain, no-nonsense, unassuming. It suggests, simply, “Welcome to Troy. Worship with First Baptist Church.”
Right beside it, on an adjacent telephone pole, and appearing at the same eye-level, is the second sign.
It is an advertisement for a local business, also plain, simple and with a telephone number: “Pressure Washing.”
Think: “Worship at First Baptist Church” … “Pressure Washing.”
Worship…pressure washing.
God is indeed providential, even over signs.
It is not, apparently, only the Calvinist, the Reformed, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards and all those given to morbid introspection who question the legitimacy of so-called “free will.” Although for different reasons, and with different results, high-flying materialist thinkers doubt it, too, yet one might question whether they do so willingly…
It is possible to live happily and morally without believing in free will. … When the feeling [of acting with free will] is gone, decisions just happen with no sense of anyone making them … It seems that when people discard the illusion of an inner self who acts … they generally do behave in ways that we think of as moral and good. So perhaps giving up free will is not as dangerous as it sounds — but this too I cannot prove. (Susan Blackmore, in What We Believe but Cannot Prove.)
Giving up free will is certainly not as dangerous as it sounds, notwithstanding vigorous, deterministic protestations of Arminians and Pelagians of every shade and stripe, especially when one considers that utter corruption to which the human self has been subject.
One rightly challenges Blackmore’s assessment that moral good can come of materialistic determinism, but must confirm the conclusion that free selection between all possibilities is false.
Christian determinists become so not because “this body and its genes and memes and the whole universe it lives in” compels it, but because experience and the word of God confirm it: our will is — rather than being “free” — bound by the sin that it so loves. We are “free” to act according to that sin nature — we are, in fact, “determined” to do so — but we are otherwise most assuredly not free of constraint.
THUMBS UP TO REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE HERMAN CAIN, who gained credibility over the weekend. On Fox News Sunday, Cain appeared not to know what Chris Wallace meant by ‘right of return.’ Wallace clarified, and Cain responded as best he could. On Monday, Sean Hannity asked Cain about the incident, and Cain admitted he did not know what Wallace meant when he asked. Subsequent to the Sunday show, Cain educated himself, and was able to point out a fallacy in Wallace’s question and answer well. This behavior is in fundamental violation of The Politician Handbook, Chapter 1: “Covering Up Your Ignorance.”
THUMBS UP TO BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israeli Prime Minister, who stood firm in the face of suggestions that his country give up even more land to the contiguous terrorist nations bent on destroying him. See his address to the Joint Session of Congress.
WITH NO NFL RESOLUTION ON THE HORIZON, professional football player Ray Lewis proposes a sort of “public necessity” argument for a glorified backyard game: no football = more crime. Public blackmail writ large.
TORNADOES RIPPED JOPLIN, MISSOURI and left these satellite images of their destructive work. We are reminded how fragile we are, how suddenly life can be taken, and Jesus’ haunting words of warning in the face of contemporary disasters, ‘unless you repent, you too will likewise perish.’
THUMBS DOWN: THE STATE OF TEXAS ATTEMPTED TO MAKE IT A CRIME for federal security personnel in airports to grope people, but government heavies managed to kill the bill by arguing that they couldn’t make air travel safe without touching people’s junk.
THUMBS DOWN TO HAROLD CAMPING, who will not go gracefully into the night. After his May 21, 2011, 6 p.m. end-of-the-world prognostication proved false (did we need proof?), Camping revised his prediction. Camping now asserts that the world will end October 21, 2011.
Harold Camping’s prediction that the world would end today, May 21, 2011 at 6 p.m. has come and gone. Allowing for minor calculation errors and the difference in time zones, I suppose there is still reason to hold off on any major plans for a few more hours.
But, assuming that he was wrong, and that the world really ends another time — for instance, December 21, 2012, when the solar system aligns, magnetic poles shift, black holes multiply — what should be our attitude?
We should, of course, as believers eagerly await the return of our Lord, which could be at any time. But our inclination to fix dates and behave accordingly is one reason the Scriptures warn us to continue with our earthly responsibilites until He does. What better way to welcome Christ than to look up from proclaiming the gospel to an unbeliever? I can’t suppose that He would be pleased that I quit my duties to sell all my possessions, neglect my family, strip naked and wait on a mountaintop.
To paraphrase Martin Luther, our responsibility in light of the return of Christ is to weed the garden.
So, rather than be continually disappointed that another expected parousia has come and gone without incident, we should eagerly await his coming by worshiping Him faithfully and seeking to persuade as many as we can — through the proclamation of the gospel — to worship Him, too.
THE WORLD ENDS MAY 21 according to Harold Camping. For the astute reader, that’s tomorrow. If you’ve yet to pay some bills for this month, why bother? Don’t fill up the tank today, either: surely gas will be much cheaper in the consummated kingdom. Then again, if you’re hedging…
STEPHEN HAWKING SAYS that heaven is a ‘fairy tale’ for people who are ‘afraid of the dark.’
HEALTH CARE WAIVERS granted by the Obama Administration are being passed out like candy at a parade. But apparently the floats only pass by the congressional districts of loyal Democrats and party hacks, since we learn how many businesses in Nancy Pelosi’s district got waivers. In a measure touted as necessary to ensure that everyone receives health care, isn’t the granting of waivers itself a tacit admission that it isn’t truly as crucial as supposed?
MONTY PYTHON may not be your usual cup of tea, but you have to give props to their skit, “Ministry of Silly Walks.” But be forewarned: this is slapstick, and dated British slapstick, at that. Sensible wives tend not to appreciate physical comedy, but rest assured that 12 year old boys (and their fathers) find it irresistible. Be sure to watch it before the end of the world tomorrow.
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S CALL for Israel to return to its 1967 borders, effectively giving back land secured in the Six Day War, might start a new trend in international diplomacy. France might call on the U.S. to give the original thirteen colonies back to England, for example. Canada might call on England and Australia to vacate territory to the Aborigines. Russia could ask Mexico to give its property back to the Aztecs…well, no one said this game of international musical chairs was going to be easy.
Those who believe that natural systems and processes are all that exist commonly reject the idea that there is life after death. Some even suggest that the belief that there is life after death, rather than being merely mistaken, is also dangerous.
For example, Ian McEwan says:
“…no part of my consciousness will survive my death. … and much damage has been done to thought as well as to persons by those who are certain that there is a life — a better, more important life — elsewhere.
(in What We Believe But Cannot Prove: Today’s Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty). The certainty with which such a scientist makes such a claim that cannot be empirically verified by the so-called scientific method is breathtaking.
But note also the element of fear to which McEwan appeals: thought itself is put at risk, and ostensibly the physical and emotional well-being of people (“much damage has been done … to persons”). In a field in which thought is supposedly open and free, subject to the rigors of logical thinking, apparently all thought is permitted except that which posits the possibility of life after death. Not only is that thought wrong, per McEwan, but it is dangerous. We can already observe the result of classifying certain thoughts and ideas “dangerous” or “harmful.”
It is also difficult to ascertain what damage is caused to persons by belief in the afterlife, as opposed to the supposedly benign — even helpful — effects of denying it. One can readily detect the consequences to a person’s life here, now, when he believes in an afterlife as opposed to those actions made permissible when he believes he is merely the product of blind forces and just another animal.
Speaking of which, the thinking of McEwan and others leads ineluctably to an untenable conclusion. For instance, McEwan continues:
That this span is brief [the length of our mind’s activity], that consciousness is an accidental gift of blind processes, makes our existence all the more precious and our responsibilities for it all the more profound.
Yet viewed in McEwan’s materialist grid, concepts such as “precious”, “responsibility” and “profound” are virtually meaningless. Regardless of the “accidental gifts” they produce, what value is brought about by “blind forces”? Aside from a purely economic understanding, value is not a materialist construct. Attributing value to such things as our existence and our consciousness is not the result of a materialist worldview, but is inherent in worldviews consistent with belief in the afterlife.
McEwan’s appeal to conscience to argue for terminated consciousness is patently absurd: a monkey in an African tree suddenly becomes aware that he is, which requires him to use his awareness to convince others monkey that their awareness ends when they die, and that there is great value in an entire monkey population being aware of the brevity of their awareness.