Jesus Christ Is A Bastard

Bastardy is defined as being the offspring (most often as male) of a woman who became pregnant by a man to whom she was not married. It refers to any child born to women not married to the child’s father.

More commonly, it is referred to as a child born out of wedlock. That is, a bastard is any child born to an unmarried woman.

Marriage confers legitimacy. Legitimacy, as the law is concerned, refers to right of inheritance.

In other words, bastardy is characterized by being born to parents whom are not married to each other. It also refers to any child born to a married woman whom is pregnant with, bearing, or having borne or birthed a child fathered by a man who was not her spouse. Those children are also considered bastard.

Simply put, any woman, married or not, who is pregnant by a man whom is not her husband is carrying a bastard child.

Accordingly, the Apostle’s Creed states in part, “Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary…”

The Roman Catholic Church says “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.”

The account as rendered in the Scripture (Matthew 1:18, 19, 20, 21 – NIV) states that “This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Clearly, the account states that Mary, while engaged to be married to Joseph (but not yet married), was pregnant, but NOT by him.

So, there you have it.

Jesus is a bastard.

It’s fairly cut-and-dried.

As far as becoming pregnant or born without sexual union, the term to describe that natural phenomenon is

How TRUE is “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command”? You’d be surprised… or, maybe not.

Remember how ANGRY some folks got when Michael Weisskopf (b.1946) of the Washington Post wrote on February 1, 1993 (link to original article with the WaPo’s editorial addendum) that the simple-minded evangelical groupies of Jerry Falwell (who himself died in 2007), Pat Robertson (b.1930), et al, that:
“The gospel lobby evolved with the explosion of satellite and cable television, hitting its national political peak in the presidential election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

“Unlike other powerful interests, it does not lavish campaign funds on candidates for Congress nor does it entertain them. The strength of fundamentalist leaders lies in their flocks. Corporations pay public relations firms millions of dollars to contrive the kind of grass-roots response that Falwell or Pat Robertson can galvanize in a televised sermon. Their followers are largely poor, uneducated and easy to command.

“”The thing that makes them powerful is they’re mobilizable,” said Seymour Martin Lipset (d.2006), professor of public policy at George Mason University. “You can activate them to vote, and that’s particularly important in congressional primaries where the turnout is usually low.”

“Some studies put the number of evangelical Americans as high as 40 million, with the vast majority considered politically conservative.”

[ed. note: The excerpt, which has frequently been distilled to “largely poor, uneducated and easy to command,” is provided here in full proper context with leading and following sentences, not merely excerpted, in order to thoroughly show proper context.]

It’s true.

Folks don’t get mad because of falsehoods.

They get mad because of truth.

It’s true.

According to the United States Census Bureau (USCB), in 2015 (22 years AFTER that was written), 32.5% of the American public aged 25, or older, have a Bachelor’s Degree (Table 1.), which is CLEARLY a minority. Thus, we see automatically the “largely” part of “uneducated.”

The USCB has also performed research on income, which is similarly delineated and categorized by education. For the year 2011 (18 years AFTER the remarks were made), and those aged 25+ with at least a Bachelor’s Degree, the average income was

Remember: Do NOT tax the rich, because they’re sacred cow “job creators” masters.

Life is more than money.

“Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness!” Ecclesiastes 5:10 (NLT)

“But if any one has this world’s wealth and sees that his brother man is in need, and yet hardens his heart against him–how can such a one continue to love God?” 1 John 3:17 (WNT)

“But godliness with contentment is great gain.” 1 Timothy 6:6 (NIV)

“Then he said, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.”” Luke 12:15 (NLT)

“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew 19:24 (NIV)

—

Nurses (yes, nurses) lead charge for Wall Street ‘sin’ tax

By Miranda Leitsinger, msnbc.com

Friday, May 18, 2012

A coalition of nurses’ unions is calling for a “Robin Hood” tax on Wall Street, which they say could generate up to $350 billion a year, in the first major protest ahead of this weekend’s NATO summit in Chicago.

Their pitch: impose a tax of 50 cents on every $100 of trades of stocks, bonds, dividends and other financial transactions, which are not currently taxed. The U.S. would join more than a dozen other nations that already have a financial transaction tax, according to National Nurses United (NNU).

“I’ve been asked many, many times … ‘What are you doing here as nurses? … What do you have to do with the economy?'” Karen Higgins, a registered nurse and co-president of NNU, said to the crowd in Chicago’s Daley Plaza.

“We’re watching this every day. We’re watching patients suffer,” she said, noting that nurses were seeing people without insurance or others who can’t afford their co-pays, as well as a spike in the number of children with adult diseases due to eating poorly because their parents can’t afford healthy food. “This is serious and in some cases it is actually deadly.”

Members of National Nurses United rally in Daley Plaza on Friday, ahead of the NATO Summit in Chicago. Tannen Maury / EPA

“We know the solution .. we are watching and seeing Wall Street throwing our money away as we see people suffer and die. It will not continue,” she said. “We pay sales tax. It is time for Wall Street to start paying back what they owe the rest of the country and they need to pay sales tax.”

The nurses’ call echoes last fall’s outcry by

Watergate Criminal Made Good – Chuck Colson dead at 80

Skeptics abounded when it was announced that Mr. Colson had converted and become Christian.

Their skepticism was misplaced, for Mr. Colson’s conversion was genuine.

If anything, Mr. Colson’s life is a story of the redemptive and transformative power of the living Christ.

His life story is a familiar one. A man with significant talent and power goes terribly awry. When confronted with the error of his ways, he is genuinely repentant, and changes his ways. He become another man altogether… a man no one would recognize, were it not for his name to identify him.

“I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'”

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”

– the words of Jesus Christ, Matthew 25:36-40

May he rest in peace, and may his memory be blessed.

1 Corinthians 13 >> New International Version 1984

---

1If I speak in the tongues^a of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^b but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

—

—

Former Nixon aide Chuck Colson dies at 80

April 21, 2012 4:29 PM

By Leigh Ann Caldwell

(CBS News) Chuck Colson, a former aide to Richard Nixon, evangelical leader, author and nonprofit founder, died Saturday at the age of 80.

He passed away at a hospital in Northern Virginia, three weeks after surgery to ease intercerebral hemorrhage — a large pool of clotted blood in his brain.

Colson was Nixon’s special counsel and was part of the Watergate scandal which led to Nixon’s resignation. He was known as the president’s “hatchet man,” and also served on Nixon’s re-election committee, which plotted and attempted to steal information from the Democratic Party headquarters.

Colson pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and served seven months of a one-to-three year prison sentence.

Prior to the start of his prison sentence, Colson became a born-again Christian. After his release from an Alabama prison, Colson founded Prison Fellowship, a nonprofit organization that conducts outreach to prisoners to “seek the transformation of prisoners… through the power and truth of Jesus Christ.”

According to his bio for Prison Fellowship, Colson formed the idea of Prison Fellowship when a fellow inmate told him “there ain’t nobody cares about us. Nobody!” Colson started the organization and ran it for 33 years.

Jim Liske, CEO of Prison Fellowship, told CBS News that

In praise of John Shelby Spong

“John Shelby Spong… I recognized his face right off the bat.

“God bless him. He needs it – as we all do.”

That was how I started my response.

It wasn’t as if I went looking for something, and rather, had briefly

Peter Schiff exposes a TEA Party fatal flaw at Occupy Wall Street

In a YouTube video entitled “Peter Schiff nails Wall Street Protesters,” Peter Schiff asks one of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators the following question – verbatim: “Wouldn’t you like to get in the 1%? You don’t want more money?”

By asking that question, Mr. Schiff makes a very critical error. In fact, it’s a very simple one to understand. Not everyone will be the 1%. By adding more to the category identified as “the 1%,” it suddenly becomes more than 1%.

As the video progresses, Mr. Schiff continues rhetorically down that deeply and fundamentally flawed path, so that by the end of the video, the conclusions he infers from the statements he makes seem to make reasonable, rational and logical sense. They are, however, founded upon logically flawed premises.

I posit that most viewers would not even casually consider such a blatant problem.

Video follows the break.

This is where I’m supposed to cobble together some title that clues you in to what you’re about to read. Just so happens, you’re SOL. ;-)

As a kid, I recollect lying in bed one evening and thinking that nothing was something… that there was absolutely no such thing as “no thing” because “thing” was something, and that a void, or chasm were things which also existed because there was something before and after, and which may have surrounded the same void or chasm. I reasoned further, that the existence of a void, or chasm could only be identified first by the presence of another thing which was opposite. Those thoughts I had long before I’d heard of the names of the world’s great philosophers, or even read any of their thoughts. My questioning led me to suppose that, when I met the Almighty – I still aspire to that Beatific Vision – I would ask Him, “Where did you come from?”

For quite some time, I have also shared that we understand the things we do not now understand by comparing them to the things we do understand. We analogize. It was fascinating – indeed exciting – to recently hear a scientific researcher – an astrophysicist – say almost verbatim the exact same thing.

In much the same way, we use our brains to understand.

Theology Throwdown

A regular visitor and commenter upon my blog – one whom I also appreciate – recently posted a remark that, “Catholics pray to Mary, and Jesus said, “no man comes to the Father except through me.”

Never mind the fact that that sentence is like a metaphorical mix – or rather, a mixing of one’s metaphors. It’s like asserting that a ‘stitch in time saves a cat’s nine lives,’ or ‘a penny saved is no use crying over spilled milk.’ It’s totally discombobulated.

That remark was prefaced with the statement that

“Say ‘hello’ to Jesus for me.”

Several years ago a friend of mine was suffering from terminal cancer. He is now deceased.

At his request one afternoon,

Chicago exorcist: The ‘evil one’ is very real

Logically, one cannot disprove the negative.

Think about that a little while.

Chicago exorcist: The ‘evil one’ is very real – Chicago Sun-Times.

BY KATIE DREWS, ChicagoCatholicNews.com – Jan 18, 2011, 10:45AM

As the official exorcist for the Archdiocese of Chicago, it’s the Rev. Jeffrey Grob’s job to expel demons from those cursed by the devil. But when it comes to demonic possession, Grob is the first to admit

PETA to protest Feeding the Hungry, Housing the Homeless, and Healing the Sick in Huntsville, AL

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was once a respectable group, not only for what they promoted, but for how they promoted, as well. Now, they’ve become a “fringe element” group, which at times has operated similarly to a terrorist organization. It’s no wonder that people have lost confidence in them and their ideals.

Tomorrow – Saturday, November 13, 2010 – PETA will demonstrate in Huntsville, Alabama at a church which has an outstanding name in the community for their many good works, not the least of which is their always-immensely successful, long-standing “LobsterFest.” This year’s Lobsterfest XVII at St. Thomas Episcopal promises to be no different – that is, it will be a sold-out success.

What is particularly disconcerting is that PETA, in their fringe element mentality, offers only

“Do you believe in God?”

“Do you believe in God?,” she looked at me and inquired innocently.

“Yes I do,” I replied, looking into her eyes.

“So do I,” she responded boldly.