Is The World Getting Better Or Worse?

OK we're doomed. Now, why aren't we all seeking ways of surviving the supposedly inevitable changes you predict? Flood, famine, etc? We can adapt, even save the animals too if we put our minds to it. We don't need to shut down all industry. Sure, I guess we should talk to the rest of the world about it, but if you haven't heard how their solution is the US shutting down all of OUR industry I don't know why not. Not THEM, us.Oh, and what about AOCs threat that it's going to be all over in a dozen years and we have to do away with absolutely everything that's carbon-driven?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Funny, even in the video AZ posted way back there explaining the causes of global warming, the guy said we aren't going to get major flooding, the oceans are too huge.There must be enough people who believe in the coming disasters who would support measures to survive and adapt. Capitalism is inventive that way. Create with those needs in mind.However, even if we did shut down all the human causes of global warming it's going to happen eventually anyway, right? And if we shut them all down we'll all freeze to death in the winter, have to do without electricity and so on and might as well be dead anyway. Or WILL be dead anyway. Yes I'm exaggerating but the principle is true enough.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You're so cute when you're acting all panicky.

I don't know if it's too late. Since I believe the West, the US in particular, have been under God's judgment for a few decades now, severe environmental disasters would fit right in. I also know that if the churches got their act together, threw out the heretics, repented of their errors and so on, and then all got down on our knees and prayed for God's mercy about all this, THAT would save the planet. If it's not too late and we've gone beyond God's patience.

You mean the water expansion part.There are just too many different views of all this, that's why as the title says I can't be certain about any of it. I don't want our industry shut down when the rest of the world is doing nothing though. Since so many predictions have failed it's hard to trust the science you are so adamantly certain about now. At least the predictions that come out of it.I have no way to judge any of this as I said. But also we ARE good at adapting. Unless this IS just the beginning of the biblical Last Days as Thug keeps suggesting, but even in that scenario there's no reason to give up on measures for adapting.But again I can't judge any of this and again I don't want America to be handicapped when we've been doing quite a bit already. Just as the Left wants to bring down Trump, much of the rest of the world (plus our Left too really) wants to bring down America, and no matter how much we do, it will never be enough. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

OK now I get that you didn't see any of the film, just must have seen a blurb about it at Pinto's website?I've been watching the film again myself, I'm about twenty minutes into it at this point. He's been talking about Thomas Paine's contributions to the new nation, in the booklet "Common Sense," which had a big influence. But then people read his other book, "The Age of Reason" and realized that he completely rejected Christianity, ridiculed it, and put reason above it. Which describes the prevailing view at EvC too, so you should agree with what Paine said. He also says that although Paine was the most outspoken about his philosophy, it was shared by the other Founders, only they were less open about expressing it because of the Christian worldview of most of the population.Pinto's point of view is very controversial to the Christian movement that teaches the Christian underpinnings of America and treats the Founders as Christians, which they weren't. Such as Wallbuilders headed by Barton first name escapes me right now. The film aims to make it very clear that the Founders were NOT Christians, the main ones anyway though there were others who were, and that in fact they repudiated the essence of Christianity. the main ones were Paine, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and even Washington who went to church with his wife but refused to take communion.This point of view ought to be quite congenial to you and others here. It is the main argument of Pinto's film.So since you think it's so terrible I suppose you must be objecting to what he finally concluded the Founders did believe, which was heavily tied up in Freemasonry. I think later in the film he spends quite a bit of time analyzing the various symbols that represent the USA, symbols on our dollar bill, the Great Seal, the Washington monument, the way the streets are laid out in D.C., the painting of Washington etc.America WAS a Christian nation but not through its Founders and its documents. It was the people who made it Christian, and that continued well into the twentieth century. Maybe the sixties could be said to be the time when it finally came to a halt. I know Pinto was planning another film to make the case for the Christian character of the nation but I don't know if he ever finished it or is still working on it or what.After watching Pinto's film I concluded that the Founders had betrayed the CHristian character of the nation, and set the stage for its rejection.I'm going to post the film itself here though I know it's too long for anyone to want to watch it. Maybe people will skim through it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It's interesting to be watching it again. He started with Paine, went through Jefferson, is now on Franklin. He spends quite a bit of time on Paine, whom he seems to see as the best presenter of the philosophical view of the Enlightenment shared by the others.The film is aimed AGAINST David Barton's point of view, criticizes him sharply for treating the Founders, particularly Jefferson, as Christians.I know people here wouldn't like Pinto's own point of view, but I think he does a good job of presenting the views of the Founders he covers, and I'm not sure which all he will cover. I'm sure he will cover Adams, though, and Adams was a Unitarian, which is not Christian although In Adams' day I think it made more use of the Bible than the other Founders would have done.I think this film covers in depth the main five, Paine, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington. Perhaps he will mention some others such as Alexander Hamilton.In any case as he presents the views of these men many here should recognize their own philosophical position.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What? He quotes copiously from the wriings of each of them in turn, mostly letters they wrote I think, opinions we don't usually get to hear. He shows beyond a doubt that they all held strongly anti-Christian opinions, in keeping with the Enlightenment views Paine in particular spelled out in his pamphlet. Based on what? Where are you getting this stuff? Pinto presents plenty of evidence of the anti-Christian views of the Founders, which shows how wrong Barton is to claim they are Christian, and he quotes the Bible to show exactly where and how they are against the Bible. He isn't proposing anything himself, all he is doing is revealing the anti-Christian position of the Founders. You completely misunderstood me. I merely meant to say that Paine spells out the Enlightenment philosophy systematically in "Age of Reason" which the opinions of the other Founders generally agree with. But Paine is not being used as a "stand-in" for the Founders at all, just a sort of introduction or overview of the concepts involved. Pinto uses plenty of their own writings to demonstrate their opinions. I was guessing about the Unitarians because I hadn't yet heard the section on Adams, but his own writings make it clear that he is no believer in the Bible, no matter what the Unitarians taught. The film aims to show the beliefs of the five he chose probably because they had the most to do with the actual writing of the documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. where Enlightenment views are shown where some try to find Christian views. He is also specifically aiming to answer those who impute Christian views to these particular men such as David Barton. There were others among the Founders who were true Christians, such as Madison and Jay IIRC. He isn't doing a study of the Founders as such, he's trying to show that these who had great influence in the formation of the government, who are often considered to be Christians, weren't. You are getting it all so wrong I may have to listen to it all again to give more specific answers, but their Deism isn't the main focus, mostly it's their attacks on the Bible, on the gospel of Jesus Christ, on supernaturalism, in many cases sounding exactly like people here. Some of them also give their own Enlightenment views that put Reason above the Bible. The main gist of the views of most of them seems to be that they like Jesus' moral preaachings but utterly deny His divinity and supernatural doings, and some talk about Him in very disparaging language. This is stuff quoted from their own writings. Pinto doesn't make any comments of his own that don't relate to the actual evidence he is presenting. Good grief, man, nothing is presented that isn't straight from the horse's mouth as it were, historical writings about the Founders' involvement in Masonry, quotes from the Founders themselves, and from people who knew the Founders, news stories, quotes from Masonic literature and from high ranking Masons.The film is really very compelling I think, should be even for EvC people. Even if you hate Pinto's own Biblical viewpoint there isn't much of it and mostly it's direct quotes from the men themselves and people who knew them, and from historians and other experts.

You are missing the entire point. Why don't you watch the film? As I said it should hold your interest, it's packed with historical facts.Who cares that Locke wasn't anti-Christian? The point Pinto is making is that the Founders he highlights shared Paine's point of view, and that his pamphlet "Common Sense" was extremely influential in the Revolution and the Declaration of Independence and the formation of the new government. And Pinto quotes from both Jefferson and Adams demonstrating extremely strong anti-Christian opinions from their own writings. Again, they liked Christian morality for the most part, but reject everything about the Person of Christ Himself and the supernatural context of the gospel of salvation.He also quotes someone about how God was specifically and pointedly thrown out of the Constitution. I guess I'd have to repeat the entire film for you before you're going to accept anything I say about it. Go watch it yourself. It is indeed something that you should find very interesting. It's long but you can take it in short bites. I'm quite sure you would find it very interesting.No he's not attributing Paine's views to the others. He's quoting the others which demonstrates their own sharing of the same views. Pinto's quotes demonstrate very clearly that they were not just nonChristian but anti-Christian, disparaging the Biblical gospel and Jesus Christ Himself. GO WATCH IT, I don't think I could quote enough of it to show you the truth about it. Go see it for yourself.It isn't a simple matter of their belonging to a sort of club in being Freemasons. There is specific teaching they accepted that turns out to have a lot of influence in their formation of the US government, and in fact teaching that influenced it in many ways beyond the Founders as well. It's basically Enlightenment thinking and it is specifically and pointedly Anti-Christian.Oh well, you don't want to watch the film, you'd rather make my words about it say what you want to believe about it. Oh well. I don't think you could do that with the actual quotes in the film but maybe I underestimate you.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I finished the film and I'm so glad I decided to watch it again after some years, because I'd forgotten so much of it and had even drifted back to positions the film answers so well.He shows beyond any doubt any of you could conjure up that the five Founders it covers were not just nonChristians but ANTIChristians, and he shows it from their own writings as well as the writings of historians and others of their time.When I first watched it I was strongly inclined to reject it because I'd had the view Barton promotes, that these men were Christians. I had Barton's view of the pagan images on our public buildings, and his rationalizations of Freemasonry. Pinto very effectively blows all that to smithereens. And again, most of you at EvC should be happy with Pinto's conclusions because you don't like the idea that America is fundamentally Christian and ou SHOULD like the philosophical concepts the Founders actually held. They sound a lot like you all.There were certainly true Christians involved in the Founding but not in the influential way these particular men were, and the country itself was certainly preodominantly Christian at the time, and that maintained an influence on the people afterward, though it wasn't in the founding documents.Pinto's own point of view is completely orthodox, solidly Biblical, based on biblical inerrancy, trinitarian, etc. Everything abohorred by so many here. Jar certainly agrees with these Founders and to a great extent so does GDR. The atheists would reject their Deism but it's so innocuous it shouldn't offend an atheist. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Right. The Founders betrayed those principles, except to the extent that they did like what they considered to be Christian morality, so that's there. But although it can't be said that the founding documents were Christian except in that limited sense perhaps, certainly the population was thoroughly Christian and that had a continuing influence.AbE: This film is the last in a series of three I think, maybe four, on the subject of the founding of America. I started on the first one last night, The New Atlantis. It's interesting that Pinto hadn't yet developed his view of the Founders as anti-Christian, so he has interviews with people affirming that they were, but since the topic is the occultic elements in the founding of America they see it as a mixture of both Christian and occultic inspiration.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Ask the Founders, it's their idea.

I suppose there is evidence of what the Founders meant in various of their writings, but Pinto doesn't spend any time defining it. I'd point to the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount myself but as I say it wasn't discussed.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'd have to see iTares Among the Wheat again to be reminded of what it's about, but just reading the first part of your link suggests it's about the Bible manuscripts controversies, and the writer labels Pinto a KJV conspiracy nut, which identifies the writer as one of the Bible dupes. Well, Pinto is not a KJV conspiracy nut, he musters the evidence and he does so over more than one film on the subject. I have a blog on the same subject and I'm not either. Neither of us starts from KJV. I start from the fraud perpetrated on the Church by Westcott and Hort and I rely mostly on Dean John William Burgon who thoroughly debunked their fraud in three long scholarly articles, titled "The Revision Revised.". Pinto starts by tracking the sources of the supposedly ancient Bible manuscripts that W and H used against the rules they were to follow in their updating of the KJV. Of course this blogger is just another one of those who have been duped by W&H, who perpetrated a really scurrilous hoax on the Church which is still dominating the Bibles used by most. I've discussed this before here.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You have a lot of opinions for someone who knows absolutely nothing about this. I did a lot of work to come to my conclusions. So did Pinto. I explicity reject the KJV-only people because they have the silly idea that there's something divine about the KJV. No, it just happens to be the only trustworthy translation after W&H did their dirty work. Burgon is not KJV-only.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.