Orthodox Network - Shining the Light of Wisdom and Truth
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for life!”
Jay Richards
Susan R. Holman
View Acton Institute’s engaging videos from “PovertyCure,” an international coalition of organizations and individuals committed to entrepreneurial solutions to poverty that challenge the status quo and champion the creative potential of the human person. [Read more...]
by Peter Kreeft-
Is there such a thing as objective morality? If there is, does that suggest a moral law giver? Peter Kreeft, distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, takes on these critical questions and offers some challenging answers.
“Good and evil are not the difference between I like and I don’t like,” observes Professor Kreeft in this video lecture. He conducts a thorough review of the five (5) theoretical sources of morality offered by atheists, and disproves each one using logic, common sense, and historical examples: [Read more...]
by Thomas Peterffy -
I grew up in a socialist country, and I have seen what that does to people. There is no hope, no freedom, no pride in achievement. The nation became poorer and poorer, and that’s what I see happening here. As a young boy I was fantasizing about one day going to America, making a success of myself, the American dream.
America’s wealth comes from the efforts of people striving for success. Take away their incentive with bad-mouthing success and you take away the wealth that helps us take care of the needy. [Read more...]
by Dennis Prager – Is there case to be made for marriage, long the bedrock institution of civilized society? Or is it just another social antique, the creation of an outdated patriarchy and no longer relevant in modern life?
by John Hayward -
A good deal of the Obama campaign is dedicated to the proposition that “profit” is evil. The quintessential Marxist formulation holds that capitalist profit is the theft of surplus labor value from workers. Obama sometimes modifies Marx to portray excessive profit as theft, while fair and reasonable profits are acceptable.
Of course, he’s the one who gets to decide what constitutes a reasonable profit margin – an entirely arbitrary decision that changes based on the nature of the industry in question, and how it intersects with political agendas. You’ll never see a chart that would bind the Left to a commitment that this industry can make 40 percent profit, while that industry is “greedy” if it shoots for more than 35 percent. [Read more...]
by Nicholas Eberstadt -
The American republic has endured for well over two centuries, but over the past 50 years, the apparatus of American governance has undergone a radical transformation. In some basic respects—its scale, its preoccupations, even many of its purposes—the U.S. government today would be scarcely recognizable to Franklin D. Roosevelt, much less to Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson.
What is monumentally new about the American state today is the vast empire of entitlement payments that it protects, manages and finances. Within living memory, the federal government has become an entitlements machine. As a day-to-day operation, it devotes more attention and resources to the public transfer of money, goods and services to individual citizens than to any other objective, spending more than for all other ends combined. [Read more...]
by John Hayward -
The despicable ad put together by pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA has disintegrated into the most noxious cloud of lies, with astonishing speed. Rarely have the waters of the political gutter washed away sewage so quickly.
Astonishingly, all three of the broadcast “news” networks managed to avoid mentioning yesterday’s biggest political story. NewsBusters notes that NBC anchor Brian Williams droned on about “both sides getting personal”… without bothering to mention that only one side was accusing the opposing candidate of murder.
But CNN tore the Priorities USA ad to shreds, with anchor Wolf Blitzer pronouncing it “full of falsehoods.” [Read more...]
by Fr. Ben Johnson -
President Barack Obama again invoked his daughters as reasons to support the abortion industry in a campaign stop in Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday.
“Mr. Romney wants to get rid of funding for Planned Parenthood,” the president told nearly 1,000 donors at the Oregon Convention Center. “I think that is a bad idea. I’ve got two daughters. I want them to control their own health care choices. We’re not going backwards; we’re going forwards.”
The reference echoes a comment he made in 2008 on the campaign trail. “I’ve got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.” [Read more...]
by Kevin D. Williamson –
Each year, the United States spends $65,000 per poor family to “fight poverty” — in a country in which the average family income is just under $50,000. Meanwhile, most of that money goes to middle-class and upper-middle-class families, and the current U.S. poverty rate is higher than it was before the government began spending trillions of dollars on antipoverty programs.
The Dependency Agenda uncovers the hidden politics of the welfare state and documents the historical evidence that proves that Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” was designed to do one thing: maximize the number of Americans dependent upon the government. The welfare state was never meant to eliminate privation; it was created to keep Democrats in power. [Read more...]
The words “happiness” and “free enterprise” don’t usually appear in the same sentence. Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute, explains that the two are intimately and profoundly connected. The free enterprise system not only creates real wealth, it also provides individuals with the best chance to achieve personal satisfaction.
Brooks’ lecture, titled “Earning Happiness: The Moral Promise of Free Enterprise,” makes a strong case that the free market economic system is most conducive to human welfare. Brooks explains
“Free enterprise matters not just because of its unparalleled material benefits but because of its unparalleled moral benefits.”
The Obama’s Administration’s mandate requiring the Catholic Church to conform to government dictates on contraception and abortifacent drugs is more than a war on the Catholic Church argue Jennifer Roback Morse and Eric Metaxas. It’s a war on freedom.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has mandated that social service providers, including those run by Christian institutions and the Catholic Church, pay for abortion inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilizations through their health insurance plans, even if this violates their religious beliefs.
Eric Metaxas and Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse articulate the grave dangers of the Health & Human Services (HHS) Mandate with regard to religious freedom in America. [Read more...]
Evangelical Christianity lost one of its most eloquent and influential voices today with the death of Charles W. “Chuck” Colson. The Prison Fellowship and Colson Center for Christian Worldview founder died at 3:12 p.m. on Saturday from complications resulting from a brain hemorrhage. Colson was 80.
A Watergate figure who emerged from the country’s worst political scandal, a vocal Christian leader and a champion for prison ministry, Colson spent the last years of his life in the dual role of leading Prison Fellowship, the world’s largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families, and the Colson Center, a teaching and training center focused on Christian worldview thought and application. [Read more...]
This November will you vote the values that will stand the test of fire? Some things are more important than high gas prices or a faltering economy. They are life, marriage and freedom.
by Seth Adam Smith -
The Via Dolorosa features over 100 figures–men and women that have left their footprint on Christianity. The man in the middle represents the modern Christian…a man who must make a choice. It takes courage to be a Christian in today’s society.
The man in this painting, puts his hand on the shoulder of Christ because Jesus is the source of his strength. The man holds up his right arm as if to say, “Be still, for I know that Jesus is the Christ!”
Says Jon McNaughton, “I got the idea for this painting as I walked through a street in Jerusalem called the Via Dolorosa. This is the road where traditionally Christ carried his cross about 2,000 years ago. I thought to myself: ‘If I had been alive then, would I have watched from a comfortable distance or would I have come to His defense?’
Today, true Christians are the most persecuted people in the entire world. Yet many of us stand idly by as we are mocked and persecuted for what we know to be true. [Read more...]
by Jennifer Hartline -
Our current President has made his position crystal clear and has demonstrated time and time again that he will always defend Planned Parenthood; he will always defend abortion-on-demand, without restriction; he will always promote the culture of death. He will even shred the constitutional rights of the Catholic Church and all people of faith.
With the lovely backdrop of the red room at the White House behind him, President Obama made a video of encouragement to Planned Parenthood supporters in America, pledging his continued and unwavering support for the abortion giant.
A sitting President went out of his way to publicly vow to protect the interests of America’s largest abortion provider and ensure their federal funding is not discontinued. He publicly declared his commitment to standing between PP and Congress, between PP and the American people, to preserve the hundreds of millions of tax dollars PP gets each year. He and Cecile Richards are so tight not a ray of sunlight can come between them. [Read more...]
