Which Ship?

 

Biden's American Rescue Plan is Catholic social doctrine in action

NCR  Mar 12, 2021

Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress passed the $1.9 billion American Rescue Plan, (ARP) and President Joe Biden signed it into law yesterday. The new law includes efforts to confront the pandemic and the economic consequences of the pandemic, but it also addresses child poverty and other long-standing issues of economic inequality. Biden promised to "build back better," and this law is a major step toward redeeming that promise.

The plan constitutes a decisive repudiation of trickle-down economics in favor of a bottom-up approach to economic stimulus that is far more consistent with Catholic social teaching.

"This legislation is about giving the backbone of this nation — the essential workers, the working people who built this country, the people who keep this country going — a fighting chance," the president said after the House passed the final legislation on Wednesday.

Biden and the Democrats have placed a big bet. If this stimulus package fails to stimulate the economy, if unemployment is still horrifically high next year, if children are still unable to go to schools in some cities because the poor ventilation in the school buildings make them viral incubators, if child poverty continues at its unconscionably high rate, the Democrats will pay a political price for this American Rescue Plan, and they will deserve to pay a price. And if it works, the Republicans might pay a price for having been bystanders at a time when so many of our fellow citizens are in profound pain. Whatever the political calculus, we all can hope that it works and, as Catholics, take some pride in the fact that our values and habits of ethical thought have played a role in coming to the nation's aid.

The Signs of Babylon

 

Rapper Lil Nas X Unveils ‘Satan Shoes’ Containing Human Blood, Limited to 666 Pairs

Breitbar 27 Mar 2021

“Satan Shoes” are expected to be released on Monday, March 29. They contain “60cc ink and 1 drop of human blood,” according to the streetwear culture and news account, Saint.

In selling the sneakers, the rapper has partnered with MSCHF — a company that runs on “structured chaos,” and has been “creating some of the most absurd, cynical, and viral projects and products that have spread across the internet,” according to a report last year by Business Insider.

Moreover, the release of the satanic sneakers will arrive on the heels of Lil Nas X’s latest music video, “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” in which the rapper can be seen dancing on a stripper pole while descending to hell, where he subsequently gives Satan a lap dance. The title video, “Montero,” is a reference to the rapper’s real name, which is Montero Lamar Hill.

Bill Gates wants to spray millions of tonnes of chalk into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight and slow global warming

Dailymail 23 March 2021

The first test of a project backed to spray millions of tonnes of chalk into the stratosphere, in an attempt to 'dim the sun' and cool the Earth, could happen in June.

Harvard University experts will test the system by sending a large balloon 12 miles above the Swedish town of Kiruna and have it drop 2kg of chalk dust into the stratosphere.

The aim of the estimated $3 million mission, backed by billionaire Bill Gates, is to have the chalk deflect a portion of the sun's radiation, stop it from hitting the surface, and cool the planet.

The idea has been heavily criticised since its inception, with project director Frank Keutsch even calling the need for this scale of geo-engineering 'terrifying'.

And experts have warned that the unusual technique could be disastrous for weather systems in ways nobody can predict.

Backed by a range of private donors including Gates, the test mission is launching from Sweden as they could offer a launch by the end of this summer. 

The test balloon will lift 600kg of scientific equipment 12 miles above the surface of the Arctic town and if it all goes well, about 2kg of dust will be released. 

This will then create a dust plume several kilometres in length - not large enough to have any effect on the intensity of the sun's rays hitting the Earth. 

During that first test the team would gather information on how particles of dust react with the air.

EXPOSED: Chemtrails hint at ongoing “New Manhattan Project” to alter Earth’s atmosphere

Chemtrails News 03/04/2021

The chemtrails that we see in our skies today are connected to a global weather modification project that stems from the WWII-era Manhattan Project, according to an exposé by researcher Peter A. Kirby. Like its predecessor, the “new Manhattan Project” is a complex and highly secretive military science project.

In fact, some of the scientists who worked on the original atomic weapon Manhattan Project have compared the power of the atomic bomb to that of storms. Many of the project’s most important scientists went on to carry out work in atmospheric science and weather modification.

According to Kirby, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the modern project’s main center for research and development, particularly its Radiation Laboratory, or Rad Lab. In his book, Chemtrails Exposed: The New Manhattan Project, he exposes how the military/industrial/academic complex that was established during WWII has enabled the development of technology that now plays a starring role in the New Manhattan Project global weather modification efforts.

Some of the research used in the project comes from Nikola Tesla, Kirby believes. Tesla first conceived of plans for manipulating weather using electromagnetic energy. When he died, many of his scientific papers and instruments were confiscated by the U.S. government, and it was just three years afterward that Bernard Vonnegut and two other General Electric scientists kicked off the New Manhattan Project.

The expert tasked with reviewing Tesla’s papers was Radiation Lab Steering Committee member and Assistant Director John G. Trump, who went on to serve as head of MIT Radiation Lab’s British Branch. Scientists at the Rad Lab made important early advancements in ionospheric heaters and air traffic control using electromagnetic energy.

The Rad Lab went on to become MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics’ Basic Research Division. Now, ionospheric heaters based on their technology are creating electromagnetic energy to modify the weather.

Incredible 1.5-Acre Permaculture / Syntropic Food Forest

 

Covid much less deadly says new study

Sebastian Rushworth   18 March, 2021

An article was recently published in the British Medical Journal that reported on a matched cohort study which compared the risk of dying for those infected with the new British variant (a.k.a. B.1.1.7) and those infected with the older covid variants.

A matched cohort study is a type of observational study where you take a group of people with some condition and then try to find a similar group without the condition to match against. Then you follow the two cohorts over time and see if they differ in some meaningful outcome (like death). Since it is an observational study, it can only show correlation. It can’t prove the existence of a cause and effect relationship, but that doesn’t stop many people acting like it does.

The article has resulted in fear-mongering headlines in news media around the world. Just to take the first example I could find, Al-Jazeera published an article with the headline: “UK variant up to 100% deadlier more deadly, study finds”.

Those darn studies, they’re always finding things. It’s like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. You knock one down here, and another one pops up over there. Anyway, let’s look in to the study some detail, and see if the claim is true.

There were two criteria that had to be fulfilled for a person to be included in the study. They had to have a PCR-test positive for covid at some point between the beginning of October 2020 and the end of January 2021. And they had to be over 30 years old. The authors don’t provide any reason for the second criterion. The only reason I can see for removing people under the age of 30 is that they pretty much never die when they get covid, and including them would therefore have resulted in less impressive mortality numbers, which would have made it a little bit harder to use the results as part of public fear mongering campaigns.

A night shift schedule is associated with increased DNA damage

Medical Xpress March 8, 2021

New clues as to why night shift workers are at increased risk of developing certain types of cancer are presented in a new study conducted at Washington State University Health Sciences Spokane.

Published online in the Journal of Pineal Research, the study involved a controlled laboratory experiment that used healthy volunteers who were on simulated night shift or day shift schedules. Findings from the study suggest that night shifts disrupt natural 24-hour rhythms in the activity of certain cancer-related genes, making night shift workers more vulnerable to damage to their DNA while at the same time causing the body's DNA repair mechanisms to be mistimed to deal with that damage.

Though more research still needs to be done, these discoveries could someday be used to help prevent and treat cancer in night shift workers.

"There has been mounting evidence that cancer is more prevalent in night shift workers, which led the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer to classify night shift work as a probable carcinogenic," said co-corresponding author Shobhan Gaddameedhi, an associate professor formerly with the WSU College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and now with North Carolina State University's Biological Sciences Department and Center for Human Health and the Environment. "However, it has been unclear why night shift work elevates cancer risk, which our study sought to address."

Reactions to Walter Veith Denying Christ's Sonship

 

Is moderate alcohol consumption healthy?

Sebastian Rushworth   19 February, 2021

I'm going to start this article by revealing my own biases. I'm not sure where the idea that alcohol might be healthy comes from. It's pretty well established that alcohol is poisonous to all living organisms. That's why we use it to disinfect surfaces, and why I lather my hands in it several times per hour when I'm working in the hospital. It interferes with the functioning of cell membranes, and at high enough doses it causes the cell membranes to fall apart completely, killing the immersed organisms. That's the reason it is such an effective disinfectant. It doesn't take a great leap to think that something that interferes with the functioning of our cell membranes might not be too good for us.

As an interesting aside, the alcohol disinfectant I use to rub my hands in at work is perfectly drinkable, if you're desperate enough. Which is why the nurses generally remove all the disinfectant containers from the patient's room if they know the patient has an alcohol addiction.

Alcohol is a very energy dense molecule. One gram of alcohol (a.k.a. ethanol) contains 7 calories. This can be compared to carbohydrates and protein, which both provide 4 calories per gram, and fat, which provides 9 calories. This is probably why we've evolved the ability to metabolize alcohol and turn it in to energy in the first place. Those of our ancestors who could eat any fermented fruit they happened to come across were less likely to starve. Which is the reason why it's possible to subsist (for a while at least) on a diet consisting entirely of alcohol. It's also the reason alcoholics generally develop severe vitamin deficiencies - they're getting most of their energy needs met from a source that is completely devoid of other nutrients. I don't recommend.

So where does the idea that moderate alcohol consumption is healthy come from? My guess would be that the companies that sell alcohol have something to do with it. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find that they'd seeded the scientific literature with articles supporting the healthiness of alcohol, just as the sugar industry has seeded the literature with articles supporting the healthiness of sugar. It could also have something to do with the fact that moderate alcohol consumption is part of the mediterranean diet, which we've been told for decades is one of the healthiest ways to eat.

Georgetown University

Georgetown University is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher learning in the United States. John Carroll’s founding of Georgetown College coincides with the birth of our nation.      

In 1789, Carroll secured the deed to 60 acres of land on a hilltop overlooking the village of Georgetown. He was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore in 1808.

Classes began in 1792. Within the first year, attendance grew to more than 40 students – some as far away as the West Indies. In 1817, the school awarded its first two bachelor’s degrees.

The Civil War (1861-1865) nearly closed Georgetown, as the student body dropped from 313 to 17 between 1859 and 1861. A total of 1,141 students and alumni enlisted in the war, serving in both the Union and Confederate forces.

After the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia, in 1862, several campus buildings were turned into a temporary hospital. To celebrate the end of the Civil War, Georgetown students selected the colors blue (Union) and gray (Confederate) as the school’s official colors in 1876.

 

Georgetown University

A Discussion with Ganoune Diop

Berkley Center, Georgetown University  

Background: Ganoune Diop is a leading intellectual within interfaith circles and has been part of the G20 Interfaith Forum since its inception in 2014, focusing on issues of religious freedom. He is currently leading the Association’s working group on religious dimensions of racism. He and Katherine Marshall spoke (by zoom) on July 27, to explore various dimensions of his path from Rufisque, Senegal to the Seventh Day Adventist headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. This has involved a constant focus on freedom and a remarkable intellectual journey crossing multiple disciplines and topics.

What did you do after you finished with your master’s degree?

I was offered an internship to become a pastor, in Paris, where I lived for many years. During the latter two years I was working as an associate pastor. I was then called to be the senior pastor in another city, Lille, a city with a well-known university with students from all over the world. I engaged many people. I focused then a great deal on philosophy, an area where my interest had never diminished, even as I was doing theology. From Lille, I was called to head the Department of Biblical Studies for the Adventist Church in France, which I did for three years.

The next large shift came when I was asked if I wanted to pursue an academic career as a teacher. That would entail going to the US, to Michigan, and doing a PhD in Old Testament. At the time, I was doing a PhD in New Testament in France at the Catholic University of Paris, linked to semiotics, the analysis of religious discourse. I was also studying at La Sorbonne. I found that fascinating. I stayed in the US for about five years, finishing a PhD in Old Testament. I then returned to France, this time as a teacher.

I had studied ancient languages, Hebrew especially, while I was in college, then for my masters. While I was working in Paris, I decided that I really needed to have a degree in philology, the science of languages. I did not just want to be a good student in Hebrew or a good student in Greek. If I was to teach these languages, I wanted to have the necessary credentials. I went to the Catholic University of Paris again, while I was teaching in France, pursuing a master's degree in philology at the School of Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations and Languages.

The Seventh Day Adventist Church is not part of the World Council of Churches. We have what we call observer status. I'm invited to events and I work with them personally. I was even part of the writing committee at the Busan General Assembly few years ago. We collaborate and we partner, but the Seventh Day Adventist Church has chosen, for freedom of conscience purposes, not to belong to an ecumenical entity with a central organization, because belonging to such a central organization is like surrendering one's constitutional conscience. This may be why the Catholic Church, for example, while having very close and cordial relationships, cannot be under the umbrella of another organization. We position ourselves in a similar way. We will join any table where people come with an equal footing. For reasons of freedom of conscience and preservation of our distinct identity, SDAs are involved in interchurch relations but not fusion of churches. We belong to the family of Christians who confess the Trinitarian God, the divinity of Jesus who is lord and savior. However, just to be clear, in some countries, the Seventh Day Adventist Church is part of, for example, the Protestant World Federation or similar organizations. France and Spain are such cases, because the government deals directly with these entities that include Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, etc. But we are not part of the World Council of Churches, nor of the Council of European Churches (CEC), even though we work so closely with them I personally teach every year at their European summer school on human rights, and I'm invited at their general assembly    More

Let’s keep Sunday sacred

Newsday 27 February 2021

SUNDAY IS the soul of the nation. It is more than just a fanatical religious preoccupation. There is a reason why the day was woven into the fabric of our society. We have to save Sunday.

Historically, the practice of reserving a day for rest was the best thing for a fledging nation. It was biblical in intent and economical in its effect. It offered intangible rewards such as resting from the labours of life and connecting with the divine.

Most of that has changed, somewhat. Like the ebbing tide that erodes our shoreline, the will and ways of men have shaped this part of our existence and changed our perspective on the day. But there are grave consequences for the nation that does not seek their God and prefers to make Sunday like every other day.

It is so sad what has happened to Sunday, once a day of worship. Our fathers failed to instil in us the respect for the divine and the restful time that the day offers. For many it’s only time to play and dingolay, or even to make some more money. While a few faithful find respite in the solemn assembly of prayer, their hands are raised in praise and sometimes in protest at what our Sunday has become.

We have failed as a people to extol the virtues of the day. Although it’s justifiable that we should engage our time and energy towards acquiring wealth, the essence of our lives cannot be trifled away by sacrificing the only day we have for rest. Sunday must be set aside for the purpose of praise and thanksgiving and relaxation.

We must remember the fate of the great city of Rome and the debauchery, the wantonness, the festivities and flagrant disorders of the day. The same demise is certain for our nation if we reject the formula for success that is found in the wisdom of a day of rest.

Current Justices of the Supreme Court: All Except Two Are Roman Catholics

Jamesjpn  January 11, 2021   

Six out of nine current Supreme Court Justices were nominated by Republican Presidents! And yet Roe vs. Wade has still not been overturned. And seven out of nine are Roman Catholics who are supposed to be against abortion!

John G. Roberts, Jr.

John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States,
President George W. Bush, Republican, nominated him as Chief Justice of the United States, and he took his seat on September 29, 2005. Roberts is a devout Catholic and is married to an ardent pro-life activist. In spite of the fact he was nominated by a Republican and is supposed to hold traditional Christian values, he ruled with other Supreme Court justices in July 2020 that Nevada can impose tighter restrictions on churches than casinos to enforce social distancing guidelines. Moreover, Roberts concurred with the liberals on the court to strike down a Louisiana anti-abortion law! Why doesn’t the Pope excommunicate the guy? Something sinister is afoot. Maybe the RCC’s stance against abortion is really phony after all.

Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice,
President George Herbert Walker Bush, Republican, nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and he took his seat on October 23, 1991. Thomas was raised Catholic and attended a Catholic seminary.

Stephen G. Breyer

Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice,
President Clinton, Democrat, nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on August 3, 1994. Breyer is Jewish.

Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice,
President George W. Bush, Republican, nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on January 31, 2006. Alito is a practicing Catholic.

Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice,
President Barack Obama, Democrat, nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009, and she assumed this role on August 8, 2009. Sotomayor is Catholic.

Elena Kagan

Elena Kagan, Associate Justice,
In 2009, President Obama, Democrat, nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 10, 2010. She took her seat on August 7, 2010. Kagan is Jewish.

Neil M. Gorsuch

Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice,
President Donald J. Trump, Republican, nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on April 10, 2017. Episcopalian, raised Roman Catholic

Brett M. Kavanaugh

Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice,
President Donald J. Trump, Republican, nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on October 6, 2018. Kavanaugh is a practicing Catholic.

Amy Coney Barrett

Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice,
President Donald J. Trump, Republican, nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat on October 27, 2020. Barrett is a practicing Catholic.

The Monsanto Papers: Getting dirty

EHN  Mar 12, 2021

The book tells the true life tale of Lee Johnson, a California groundskeeper who was diagnosed with terminal cancer he alleged was caused by his exposure to Monsanto's Roundup herbicides.

Lee wouldn't think about the sprayer accident again until many months later, when an odd-looking scaly lesion popped up just above his right knee. It itched and cracked and oozed. As time passed, the patch near his knee was matched by another on his arm. And another on his torso. Small bumps the size of BB pellets sprouted out of his skin. Lee changed the laundry soap and dryer sheets his family used and tried an assortment of creams, but nothing helped. Dread grew with every new spot that erupted. Eventually, nearly Lee's entire body, including his face and scalp, was covered in painful sores. Some became infected, including one on his head.

As his condition progressed, Lee's once unmarred skin broke open at the slightest touch in some places, and wearing clothing became almost unbearably painful. A lesion even developed on one of his eyelids, making it impossible for him to open the eye without grimacing in pain. The softer the skin where the lesions sprouted, the more searing the pain, Lee learned.

Strangers started to stare when Lee went out. His sons' friends asked if he'd been burned in a fire or suffered from some disfiguring disease. "What's wrong with your dad?" became a common question for Ali when Lee attended a football practice. He took to wearing long sleeves, long pants, and large sunglasses in public, hoping to avoid the pitying glances from strangers.

In the early stages, when the skin eruptions were fewer, flatter, and less painful, Lee could still sometimes tell himself they might just be part of a weird rash. He kept going to work as usual and kept doing his regular rounds, including spraying weed killer. He convinced himself that the skin problems would resolve themselves, just as the bee stings and bloody scrapes he suffered on the job always had. But when the sores spread to his face, Lee had had enough. It was time to see a doctor and, he hoped, find a medicine that would clear it all up.

My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less

 

Archaeologists Dig Up the Bible at Ancient City of Shiloh

 

Sunlight and Vitamin D: They’re Not the Same Thing

Westonaprice   April 20, 2020

ARTICLE SUMMARY
• Sulfate synthesis in the skin captures the sun’s energy. Adequate sunlight exposure to both the skin and the eyes is vital to our long-term health.
• Among other functions, sulfate supports blood vessel health, the body’s electrical supply and the delivery system for important molecules such as cholesterol, vitamin D, dopamine and melatonin.
• Evidence indicates that sunlight protects against cancer, heart disease, hypertension and bone fractures.
• The benefits of sunlight exposure are about much more than vitamin D.

• Many studies show that vitamin D supplementation cannot reproduce sunlight’s health benefits. Moreover, excessive vitamin D supplementation can aggravate systemic sulfate deficiency, which will drive calcium buildup in the arteries.

• Both sunscreen and glyphosate interfere with synthesis and production of melanin—the body’s natural mechanism of sun protection. Aluminum in sunscreen disrupts sulfate synthesis. These disruptions may explain why melanoma prevalence has steadily risen in tandem with the increased use of higher sun-protection-factor sunscreens over the past two decades.

 

We have been brainwashed into believing that the sun is toxic, whereas in fact it is life-giving. I am a great fan of sunlight exposure to both the skin and the eyes. The sun has been a resource for Planet Earth since the beginning of time, and biological organisms evolved with a constant supply of energy they could count on every day with the rising sun. Plants use the energy of sunlight to convert inorganic carbon into organic matter, with the help of chlorophyll. Why would animals ignore such an obvious energy source? Just as plants need sun­light to grow, sunlight plays an essential role in energizing animals, including humans.

I believe that the mechanism with which we safely exploit the sun’s energy is through the oxidation of sulfur to sulfate, with the help of choles­terol. This reaction takes place in the skin—catalyzed by sunlight—and it is vital to our long-term health.

PROTECTIVE SUNLIGHT

People who live in places with little sun have statistically higher risk for many chronic conditions, including multiple sclerosis, diabe­tes, cardiovascular disease, autism, Alzheimer’s disease and age-related macular degeneration.¹ On the other hand, a great deal of epidemio­logical evidence suggests that sunlight exposure protects from many different types of cancer. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is recommended in treating different skin conditions, including pso­riasis, eczema, jaundice and acne. Sunlight may also be beneficial in healing various autoim­mune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, inflammatory bowel disease and thyroiditis.

Yet chances are that your dermatologist has told you to “stay out of the sun and take a vitamin D supplement every day.” For some, this has seemed like good advice because we have been taught to believe that the sun causes skin cancer and that the only reason to get out in the sunlight at all is to boost vitamin D levels through its UV-stimulated synthesis in the skin. Driven by the belief that the benefits of sunlight exposure are mainly due to vitamin D synthesis, the natural conclusion is that vitamin D supple­ments would achieve the same goal.

The story is not that simple, however. When placebo-controlled studies are conducted on vi­tamin D supplementation, they usually produce disappointing results. I believe the reason is that sunlight exposure is about a whole lot more than vitamin D synthesis in the skin. In a paper published in 2016, Richard Weller wrote: “A substantial body of evidence shows that sunlight has health benefits and that these are independent of vitamin D and thus cannot be reproduced by oral supplementation.”²

Psalm 23

 

 

Merkel urges Putin to pull troops back from Ukraine border

Aljazeera    8 Apr 2021

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday to pull back a military build-up near the country’s border with Ukraine amid heightened tensions in the conflict-stricken Donbas region.

Ukrainian government troops have battled Russian-backed separatists in the country’s eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which form part of Donbas, since the rebels seized a swath of territory there in April 2014.

Fears of an escalation in hostilities have mounted in recent weeks, with Ukraine raising the alarm about an increase in Russian forces along the countries’ shared border and renewed front-line clashes.

“The Chancellor demanded that this build-up be unwound in order to de-escalate the situation,” Germany’s government said in a readout of a telephone call between Merkel and Putin.

 

 

Weather modification as a weapon

 

Our Father's love

 

The Spirit and power of God will be poured out upon His children.

Popular revivals are too often carried by appeals to the imagination, by exciting the emotions, by gratifying the love for what is new and startling. Converts thus gained have little desire to listen to Bible truth, little interest in the testimony of prophets and apostles. Unless a religious service has something of a sensational character, it has no attractions for them. A message which appeals to unimpassioned reason awakens no response. The plain warnings of God's word, relating directly to their eternal interests, are unheeded.  

With every truly converted soul the relation to God and to eternal things will be the great topic of life. But where, in the popular churches of today, is the spirit of consecration to God? The converts do not renounce their pride and love of the world. They are no more willing to deny self, to take up the cross, and follow the meek and lowly Jesus, than before their conversion. Religion has become the sport of infidels and skeptics because so many who bear its name are ignorant of its principles. The power of godliness has well-nigh departed from many of the churches. Picnics, church theatricals, church fairs, fine houses, personal display, have banished thoughts of God. Lands and goods and worldly occupations engross the mind, and things of eternal interest receive hardly a passing notice.

Notwithstanding the widespread declension of faith and piety, there are true followers of Christ in these churches. Before the final visitation of God's judgments upon the earth there will be among the people of the Lord such a revival of primitive godliness as has not been witnessed since apostolic times. The Spirit and power of God will be poured out upon His children. At that time many will separate themselves from those churches in which the love of this world has supplanted love for God and His word. Many, both of ministers and people, will gladly accept those great truths which God has caused to be proclaimed at this time to prepare a people for the Lord's second coming. The enemy of souls desires to hinder this work; and before the time for such a movement shall come, he will endeavor to prevent it by introducing a counterfeit. In those churches which he can bring under his deceptive power he will make it appear that God's special blessing is poured out; there will be manifest what is thought to be great religious interest. Multitudes will exult that God is working marvelously for them, when the work is that of another spirit. Under a religious guise, Satan will seek to extend his influence over the Christian world.  

In many of the revivals which have occurred during the last half century, the same influences have been at work, to a greater or less degree, that will be manifest in the more extensive movements of the future. There is an emotional excitement, a mingling of the true with the false, that is well adapted to mislead. Yet none need be deceived. In the light of God's word it is not difficult to determine the nature of these movements. Wherever men neglect the testimony of the Bible, turning away from those plain, soul-testing truths which require self-denial and renunciation of the world, there we may be sure that God's blessing is not bestowed. And by the rule which Christ Himself has given, “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16), it is evident that these movements are not the work of the Spirit of God.     Great Controversy p. 464

The Book of Daniel Nimrod and Lockdown

 

It is 100 seconds until “midnight"

NY Post January 27, 2021

The symbolic Doomsday Clock — designed by scientists to measure how close humanity is to an apocalypse — remains set dangerously close to disaster at 100 seconds until “midnight,” it was revealed Wednesday.

The annual end-of-days prediction remains the closest the clock has ever ticked toward catastrophe, based on threats including the coronavirus, climate change and nuclear catastrophe, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced.

Marking “a historic wakeup call,” its hands have remained in the same place since January 2020, the first time it ever moved closer than two minutes to midnight.

“[This year] revealed just how unprepared and unwilling countries and the international system are to handle global emergencies properly,” the group said in a press release.

“We are now expressing how close the world is to catastrophe in seconds — not hours, or even minutes. It is the closest to Doomsday we have ever been in the history of the Doomsday Clock. We now face a true emergency — an absolutely unacceptable state of world affairs that has eliminated any margin for error or further delay,” added Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the group.

The Stock Market, Fatally Wounded by the Truth, Will Stumble and Crash

Charles Hugh January 30, 2021

It didn't have to be this way, but this is the reality we must now face: truth is fatal to fraud, and our entire financial-political system is a fraud.

The stock market has just been punctured by the thin blades of truth. It is fatally wounded but nobody dares notice. The wounds are barely visible, but the internal damage is mortal. The stock market is already stumbling and will soon crash.

The banquet's participants ignore the faltering market because the rules are we never reveal the truth, or acknowledge it, or discuss it, no matter how obvious, because truth is fatal to fraud. So the stock market's vital signs are in freefall but the conversation remains upbeat and light: stimulus, rapid growth in the second half, etc., all the patter of a carefully constructed illusion that fraud is forever as long as the truth never comes out.

Alas, the truth has emerged from the shadows, despite the silence of the insiders and the financial media. Here are the truths that have emerged like karmic genies:

1. The stock market is nothing but one giant fraud. The entire market is corrupt and rigged from the ground up. The fraud is systemic, designed into every tendril of the market. It was a useful deception to blame it all on "bad players," but now the truth has been revealed: the market is nothing but a rigged game enriching insiders.

2. The Fed is a fraud. All the Federal Reserve has accomplished in 13 years of goosing the stock market is unprecedented wealth and income inequality as the fraud of the Fed has boosted the fraud of the market, which has fatally undermined America's social and economic orders. Please read this short paragraph and let it sink in. Monopoly Versus Democracy (Foreign Affairs):

Ten percent of Americans now control 97 percent of all capital income in the country. Nearly half of the new income generated since the global financial crisis of 2008 has gone to the wealthiest one percent of U.S. citizens. The richest three Americans collectively have more wealth than the poorest 160 million Americans.