The Search For Meaning

The Search For Meaning in Lifeby Dan Doyle -
Suffering comes into every life. Often it is so terrible we wonder how we can ever survive it. We can’t imagine the there could be any meaning in it. One of the most important books I’ve ever read is Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” In it he tells of his experiences as an inmate in several of the Nazi death camps during WWII. Frankl was one of the lucky ones, he survived. He was liberated at the end of the war from Auchwitz as the only survivor of his family. Out of his pain and loss, out of the hell of it all, he came away with a deeper faith in God and, ironically, in humanity. We are the lucky ones, then, who can read this small book and be edified by the powerful meaning he discovered in and through his own suffering.

When we suffer, nothing makes sense to us. We are overwhelmed with a feeling that the world is cold, indifferent to our suffering, that we are utterly alone in it and imprisoned by it. How could there be any meaning in it at all? This is the central question of Viktor Frankl’s book. The core responsibility of our individual human lives is to find meaning and purpose, not just in fame, or wealth, but in transcendent ways, through faith, hope and, most importantly through love. [Read more...]

Truth is Hate (To Those That Hate Truth)

Truth is Hate To Those That Hate Truthby Bill Muehlenberg -
On the outside wall of the Ministry of Truth building are the three slogans of ‘The Party’: “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.” Those who have read Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell will be quite familiar with all this.

In his chilling 1949 novel Orwell warned of where society was heading, and in it offered us a horrific police state where Big Brother controlled everything through extensive use of propaganda, government censorship and surveillance, and nonstop indoctrination and mind control.

The book prophetically spoke of “thoughtcrimes,” “Newspeak,” and “doublethink”. Who would have thought that just sixty years on these very things would increasingly be part of life in Western societies? Today we have “hate crimes” and “hate speech” which refers to anything the secular social militants regard as non-PC. [Read more...]

Religious Freedom is Necessary for Other Freedoms to Flourish

Religious Freedom key to all other freedomsby Thomas Farr -
Is religious freedom necessary for other freedoms to flourish? This is indeed a big question. It implicates an array of philosophical issues and scholarly disciplines, but it also has distinctly practical, even strategic, dimensions. That is to say, it raises questions not only about human nature and human flourishing, but about the freedom and stability of whole societies, as well as international peace.

The “other freedoms” with which we are here concerned typically exist in a mature democratic system of civil society and ordered liberty. They include the freedoms of expression, association, assembly, economic activity, and equality under the law, and freedom from persecution or unjust violence. [Read more...]

The Marxist Heart of Darkness

Marxist Darkness Evil Deadly by Bruce Walker -
Those who doubted Obama’s immersion in Marxism now have a perfect window into his soul — namely, in the form of the stunning class warfare remarks he recently made in Roanoke, Virginia.

We must grasp, however, what Marxism is and what it is not.  Marxism is not a political philosophy to help the poor at the expense of the rich, and it is not a design for a utopian future.  Marxism is simply a Heart of Darkness, a Siamese twin of Nazism, a curse on all humanity committed to three themes: (1) hatred, (2) misery, and (3) lying.

Marxism is neither a science nor a system of belief.  It is a rationale for seizing power and terrorizing all those who are not its cadres.  Marxism — English Socialism, or “Ingsoc” — was the secular religion of George Orwell’s Oceania.  In Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984, the interrogator of Winston Smith explains the goals of Ingsoc:

“Power is not a mean, it is an end.  One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.  The object of persecution is persecution.  The object of torture is torture.  The object of power is power.”
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Defending Our First Freedom

Christian persecution, loss of religious liberty America by Archbishop José H. Gomez -
We are slowly losing our sense of religious liberty in America.

There is much evidence to suggest that our society no longer values the public role of religion or recognizes the importance of religious freedom as a basic right. As scholars like Harvard’s Mary Ann Glendon and Michael Sandel have observed, our courts and government agencies increasingly treat the right to hold and express religious beliefs as only one of many private lifestyle options. And, they observe, this right is often “trumped” in the face of challenges from competing rights or interests deemed to be more important.

These are among the reasons the U.S. Catholic bishops recently established a new Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty. My brother bishops and I are deeply concerned that believers’ liberties—and the Church’s freedom to carry out her mission—are threatened today, as they never have been before in our country’s history. [Read more...]

I Am In Awe of Such Faith

Christian Persecution in Afghanistanby Matthew Archbold -
An Afghanistan Christian and father of six, is imprisoned and scheduled to die. His crime? He believes Christ is his Savior. And he is scheduled to die because of it. No defense lawyer will take his case for fear of retribution. And he has been told that if he renounces Christ things would go easier. But he doesn’t. He won’t.

Said Musa, who lost his leg from a landmine in the 1990’s and has worked since then as a medical worker for the Red Cross fitting children with prosthetics, has been in jail for eight months. According to a public letter written by him and addressed to our President and the world community, he has been brutally tortured and abused in every way possible, both by guards and inmates.

As of yet the media and the world seem to have taken little notice of Said Musa. There are currently less than 100 mentions of Musa in the news and most of them are not considered part of the mainstream media, other than the Wall Street Journal. [Read more...]

Innocents Betrayed – The History of Gun Control

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. How tyrants use gun-control to disarm the people they intend to enslave and slaughter.
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Is Obama’s Position on Religious Freedom ‘Mosque, Yes; Cross, No?’

Mojave_Cross_covered_02_md 10/10/2010 – Margaret Calhoun Hemenway -

It would be unimaginable for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to pursue the removal of thousands of crosses in Arlington National Cemetery, situated so near the seat of the federal government in the nation’s capital and where so many of America’s veterans and honored heroes are laid to rest. Likewise, it would be seemingly unthinkable for the ACLU to try to sue to eliminate the Senate and House chaplains (both of whom are of the Christian faith), who, in accordance with longstanding tradition, open with a prayer the upper and lower chambers each day that Congress is in session.

But like the predatory wolf that searches for the lamb at the outskirts of the flock, the ACLU targeted a lone cross — a war memorial — in California’s Mojave Desert, off a desolate highway, perhaps believing it to be an easy target for removal. The ACLU was mistaken. For ten years, a battle has been waged to preserve this solitary Latin cross, first erected in 1934 to honor World War I veterans. In fact, the Mojave Desert War Memorial is our nation’s sole congressionally designated World War I memorial.

A former National Park Service (NPS) official (who now lives in the State of Oregon) objected to the cross memorial and enlisted the ACLU to sue to remove it. [Read more...]

The Left’s Unlikely Alliance with Islam

Radical Left Islam Alliance8/28/2010 – Robert Eugene Simmons Jr. -

As we look around the world at the countries that practice Islam as a state religion, it is almost incomprehensible that the left should defend Islam so fervently. We don’t have to look to the radicals in the Taliban or Hamas to see issues that most Americans would question. Sharia Law is practiced by most Islamic centric countries, and it is in almost direct opposition to the principles on which America was established and in direct contrast to the agenda of the left in America. What is important to realize is that Sharia Law isn’t an outlier, practiced by radicals like al-Qaeda, but actually the mainstream core of jurisprudence in the Islamic world.

The application of Sharia Law is incomprehensible to most Americans used to Western common law. For example, late last year, the Saudi equivalent of the Supreme Court refused to grant a divorce to an eight-year-old who was essentially sold to her fifty-year-old husband by her father. Child brides are prevalent and legal in Muslim countries governed by Sharia law. In another example, just recently, a case of a couple who were stoned to death for having sexual relations outside marriage made the news from Afghanistan, and a thirteen-year-old was stoned to death for being raped and ending up pregnant. [Read more...]

The Communist Holocaust

Communist Holocaust

Communist Holocaust: 100+ million dead, hundreds of millions more tortured, imprisoned, and enslaved

Compiled by Chris Banescu (contributors: Scott Manning, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation)

In October 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution gave birth to the deadliest ideology in human history – Communism. In less than 100 years, Communism has claimed more than 100 million lives. Today, it continues to enslave one-fifth of the world’s people.

A free people cannot afford to forget the evils of Communism. We cannot allow the atrocities of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, and Castro to fade into the background of history. We must not forget the trail of blood and tears this utopian deception has left behind.

It is a great moral failing that so many do not know the extent of Communism’s atrocities. While the horrors of Nazism are well known, who knows that the Soviet Union murdered 20 million people? Who knows that China’s dictators have slaughtered as many as 60 million? Who knows that the Communist holocaust has exacted a death toll surpassing that of all of the wars of the 20th century combined? (Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation) [Read more...]

Christians Murdered, Story Overlooked

OneNewsNow | by Allie Martin | Feb. 11, 2010

A pro-family leader wonders where the outrage is in the wake of the cold-blooded murder of two Christians who were street-witnessing in Florida. Tite Sufra, 24, and 23-year-old Stephen Ocean were recently shot to death by a man they had witnessed to in Boynton Beach.

According to police, the men met 18-year-old Jeriah Woody and spoke with him for 15 minutes on the public sidewalk. The witnessing encounter was halted when Woody received a phone call and told the preachers he had to go. Police say as the pair walked away, Woody turned and followed them, pulled a gun and shot both men. He has been arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. [Read more...]

A Plea from a Christian Copt

by a Christian Copt | Jan. 11, 2010

The recent killings in Nag Hammadi have cast a dark shadow over a time that for Copts (Christian of Egypt) all over the world should be very joyous. We find ourselves unable to enjoy the glory of the Lord’s birth while our brethren in Egypt are mourning the loss of their young sons.

While many of you may see this as just an unfortunate event, I see it as much more. During the past 1,358 years, the Christian of Egypt have been attacked, persecuted, scorned, enslaved, and all but annihilated by the Arab Muslim majority. [Read more...]

Hollywood’s Sick Love Affair with Che Guevara

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Hamas Legalizes Crucifixion

Jerusalem Post | Caroline Glick | Dec. 26, 2008

Both Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza have been busy this Christmas week showing Christendom just what they think of it. But no one seems to have noticed. On Tuesday, Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Shari’a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, it legalizes crucifixion.

Hamas’s endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time it renewed its jihad. Here, too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn’t feel neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools. So on Wednesday, Hamas lobbed a mortar shell at the Erez crossing point into Israel just as a group of Gazan Christians were standing on line waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas. [Read more...]

The Light of Hope in Darkness

American Thinker | Bruce Walker | Dec. 23, 2008

In the Mumbai Massacre terrorists particularly targeted Jews, focusing special attention of the Chabad house. The Holocaust denial in Iran and the proliferation of literary outrages like The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion or monstrous tracts like Mein Kampf, are sad proof that hatred of Jews is not limited to terrorists operating in India. The chic Leftists of Europe unite with terrorists in their reflexive hatred of Israel and unspoken anti-Semitism.

Grimly, not just anti-Semitism found violent expression in the generally placid India. This year alone, more than 100 Christians have been murdered in anti-Christian riots on the subcontinent. The ancient Christian community in Iraq is facing slow extermination. The defamation of Christian faith in elite salons has never been more gleeful than now. [Read more...]