To My Friendly Neighborhood Atheist Buddies

Recapping from last week:
"¹⁴But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." 1 Cor 2:14

Scriptures such as this usually bring out the worst in Atheists. They usually go on and on about 'can't trust the Bible' or 'written by a bunch of ignorant men a long time ago'.
Hey, natural men! YOU who do not accept the things of the Spirit of God. Yeah-you!
Those things are spiritually appraised. Which means that natural men are not capable of discerning them. Spiritual things are foolishness to you, right? Bible is a closed book, one filled with inaccuracies and bigotry? 
Imagine how it is for us on the other side of the spiritual fence-we KNOW that you are spiritually blinded, cannot discern evidence. We also know that it is usually a waste of time to argue with you.
But I'm feeling pretty good tonight, and will share two evidences that I expect you to reject.
Evidence Uno:
Calling the first (inner) Witness-YOU.
If I say that Allah is God...nothing. Dead air. Not a quibble. You don't care.
If I declare that Jesus Christ is Lord...your hackles raise up, rejecting and denying statement jump to the front of your consciousness. Don't bother denying it-I know the truth.
Evidence Dios: (I'm not as funny as I think I am...I'm funnier!)
One of the Atheist's most threadbare demands is for PHYSICAL evidence proving the existence of God.
"I'm a Scientist, Jim! I need to SEE something to believe it!"
Oh, there's physical evidence in abundance that you will cynically reject, for two reasons:
you are still spiritually blind, so nothing will change your mind, and
IF you were compelled to assess/discern the truth about God, your world would be in danger of being flipped upside down like the picture of the BEAUTIFUL day bed which heads this post. This will activate your spiritual defense mechanisms, making you all the more vehement in your denials of God's existence. Because if He does exist...then you have to contend with that Truth instead of blithely continuing down your happy atheist road.
All of that is preface to the physical evidence that you will call foolishness:
the Jewish people. Have you ever shaken the hand of a Jewish person? Then you've touched evidence that God exists. The only reason that the Jewish people ARE a people is that God separated them out from the rest of humanity.
Have you noticed that there seems to be a LOT of hatred directed at the Jewish people?
They are just people, flesh and blood like the rest of humanity.
That hatred is not logical, reasonable or right.
It is spiritual in nature, because the world system (Kosmos, remember?) in opposition to God does not want any evidence to be recognized or accepted. So it hates the Jews, as God must exist if they do.
Why do I bother? Why argue? Why not just let people be?
Because I was once on your side of the fence. God is still opening/changing minds, still rescuing souls (remember that?) from destruction. what He did for me He might do for you. Cheers! The crowd goes wild! Luke 15:10-look it up yerself, buddy.

Kosmos Khameleon

Fear not, brave atheists, proud pagans and other Liberals-I won't be 'clobberin' you' with Bible references that you won't accept, anyway. Excepting the one above, which is the basis for quite a bit of theology that you won't care about. And maybe one more. We'll see.
Above we find Kosmos, the word translated 'World' which Jesus claims to have overcome.
In brief, Christians believe that Sin entered the world, changing its nature from perfect to imperfect, from incorruptible to corrupted. Sin brought Death; spiritual and physical death for us humans.
Sin also brought separation from God, which is where we are now landing on the concept of Kosmos.
The natural state of man is to be separated from God, to be at odds with Him because of the Sin nature into which we are all born.
Thus, Kosmos. Mankind going his own way away from God, seeking to build civilization, become 'better', to succeed without God. Generation after generation of Mankind ignoring God, refusing to bow the knee, teaching children that their is no God
OR
replacing God with god or gods of their own imaginations. Dog gods and mountain gods and Anubis and Ra and all of that rah rah.

Montaigne wrote: "Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens."

So, by the definition I am working with, Kosmos is the natural corrupted world system within which we all exist that is in opposition to God. That is the world which Jesus overcame by His paying the price for our sins by dying on the cross, a sacrifice in our behalf which satisfied God's justice.
I know that this is all skunkworks and myth to you. I warned that I might spring one more Scripture on you, so guard your mind and prepare your rejectors:
"¹⁴But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." 1 Cor 2:14
You might find it troubling that a God whom you think doesn't exist can state your position so clearly. 
So, you may ask, why am I, flesh and blood Doug so certain that I am right?
Because I am also spiritual Doug who was spiritually dead, a natural man, until I became 'born again' back in 1979. If you were born later than April 1979...I have been fully convinced of the existence of God since before you were born.
I moved from this Kosmos to being a member of God's family. So, standing outside of it, I can see this Kosmos for the cheap cardboard imitation reality that it truly is, apart from God.
For example-global warming or climate change or whatever they call it next week-I don't worry about that as I know that God is not going to 'destroy the world with a flood'. So no icecaps melting are going to put Iowa underwater.
I also recognize that every man made theology which seeks to supplant God is simply weak tea. No matter how vehemently the Muslim may shout, it doesn't make Allah God. No Mormon is actually birthing spiritual babies which will become gods of their own domains in space.
And no logic or argument Man can come up with will ever change Who God is. The smart money doesn't even try.

Beginning To Look A LOT Like You-Know What!!!

Attribution up front-I re-worked the graphic found on The Federalist Papers Dot Org.
Looks like Christmas gift wrapping, doesn't ? Add a few zebras or sleigh bells and it's ready to send to your Aunt Minnie.
As I mentioned in my last post, I doubt that even the Democrat run states want to take in refugees who might actually BE terrorists in Dove's clothing.
But Dems must toe the Party line, even if it harms their citizens OR (may allah for-fend) their re-election hopes!
I wonder how many Democrat Governors received a phone message from President Obama.
(Nice little state you got there...be a shame if anything happened to it.)
But I kid because I care.
You will notice that no one wants South Dakota. Again.
Isn't California just about bankrupt? Perfect place to send thousands of refugees! Just put them on the public dole and, by President Obama's reckoning, the state will do better. Lifts all boats or something.
I think that in a few months, even IF there are no terrorist attacks in America...this map will turn more Red. Meaning that even the Dems will object to hosting those who have been packaged and sold to us as 'refugees'.
Before you label me as a "Hater" or just downright MEAN...think about this.
Can you recall in your lifetime such a mass exodus of refugees from so far away that for some reason (?) MUST land in Europe, America and Australia?
WHY?
If the problem is in Syria...there are many neighboring countries to which to flee. Unless those countries are no longer safe, either. If that is the case...will every middle Eastern country soon be flooding the Western world with displaced peoples? Are the Syrians only the first of many?
Also, please think of this-if the people leave Syria to get away from ISIS/ISIL, then, as ISIS controls more ground...will they not become more powerful and dangerous?
The Refugee Crisis 2015 may be the first few drops of rain before the roof caves in and we are all washed away in a flood.
But Seriously? South Dakota? Anybody? No?

NIMS!

I hope that this Mary Troyan doesn't mind my reblocking of her USA Today article-I just made the header more condensed/visually palatable.
This hadn't occurred to me-that Governors might tell the Federales concerning the
Syrian 'refugees':
"NOT IN MY STATE!"
President Obama might not care. One signature on one piece of paper could declare FEDERAL imminent domain (forgive, please-I've never met a pun so bad that I wouldn't use it.) superseding ALL governors powers.
I'm just guessing, but I doubt that even the Democrat run states are willing to take in Syrian refugees.
But again-what ANY governor likes or dislikes may not matter to President Obama.
He will get that second Peace Prize for doing his part to assuage the 'refugee crisis' if it costs the Democrats every ounce of political capital that they have left.
Even if it costs Democrats every major election for the next decade...he! will! not! be! denied!!!
Here's what I mean-let's say that Governor Cuomo of New York opens his state to the Syrian refugees and just one of them happens to 'go rogue-Islam style', killing a bunch of New Yorkers in a terrorist attack.
Next election...no more Governor Cuomo.
President Obama will probably be out of office before the consequences of his imperial actions have their full effect on this country. In legalese, this is called 'getting away with it.'
But he won't. God is just, and, unless President Obama actually becomes a born again Christian...he will stand before God to answer for his sins. Just like the rest of the unsaved world.
You might ask, "Doug-refugees! Where is your Mercy and Grace now?"
Defeat ISIS and dethrone Assad and those refugees can return to their much improved country. But for now...NIMS.

Silver Lining But You May Not Agree

If you don't mind, I'm going to sneak over the border onto some dangerous ground with this post.
Now Paris, soon...Albuquerque? French Lick, Indiana? Dearbornistan?
Short history lesson. Syria has been run for decades by some baddies named Assad.
Recent events by the Syrian populace to remove Assad have caused his regime to double down on the baddie stuff, which has led (?) to a refugee invasion of many European countries.
Millions of refugees flooding into a handful of nations. Who may not assimilate into the cultures they are entering, by design or by nature.
I DID say Silver Lining, and it appears regarding this refuge flood.
"How You Going To Keep Them Down Under Your Thumb (After They've Seen Paree)?"
Yes, there will be continuing clashes of cultures as the Muslims becoming French and German and Danish IN NAME ONLY will refuse to assimilate. We're in for a rough few decades, unless Christ returns and puts an end to human foolishness.
BUT...
The youngsters-the kids who, if not for this Assad genocide/ refugee crisis would have spent their entire lives stuck in Syria, imprisoned in Islamic ideology...there will be some who break free, reject the hatred they've been taught and indeed assimilate.
Opportunities to break free from Islam will happen, and some will be free.
That is Silver Lining enough for now.

Don't Understand Fear

I'm not an idiot.
But I can't get my head around how fear works.
Paris. Terrorists. Murderers.
Weaponized Fear?
Oh, I get it, in part-it's a control thing. Scare someone, make them fear you...you control them.
For a moment. And then the blowback.
We are three weeks away from the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It scared us, for a moment.
Then...blowback.
Our resolve was heightened, we entered the War and in a few horrifying years we won surrender from those who would re-make the maps, remake the world in their own image.
Paris. As President Obama is too much of a coward to state the obvious, the attacks in Paris are the work of Islamic religionists who are following the tenets of their faith. You won't find Southern Baptists tossing explosives into crowds of innocents while shouting "Allahu akbar.".
Here's why fear is a mystery to me. Long term, it doesn't work. No one stays scared. Fear is for a moment, then other emotions take over and bad things happen to the fear mongers.
Also, without putting too fine a point on it...I don't fear anyone. I love my life, but when I die I will have a better, fuller life in Heaven.
Hard to scare someone who isn't afraid to die.

Reminder From The Remainder

Just came across this photo of Otto Frank, father of Anne, revisiting the attic where his family hid from the Nazis. He was the lone survivor, and knew loss such as few of us living now could comprehend.
So, why is this post on FDW right now?
That picture.
Back in the late 1960's my high school staged the play, "The Diary Of Anne Frank".
The set dressing, the stage, as I remember it, looked remarkably like this picture.
I remember the production because my brother played the character who betrayed the family.
Right now, as always, family and friends, those in my circle...we are all in the process of grieving, mourning, celebrating, welcoming and saying good bye. It's called Life.
Otto Frank remarried, and that is part of this post, too. We move on, cherishing those lost while continuing to Live.

Fair? Unfair? Just?

I haven't any idea how true or untrue the story on Drudge shown above may be. Could be swamp gas, political rhetoric, factually correct or something else.
This isn't about the story as much as the intimation it alleges.
Here's the thing that struck me-IF a Republican President defied rulings of the Supremes, or dared bypass Congress to advance his own political objectives...would Liberals raise a stink about it?
I think they would.
So, if it is wrong for a Republican to act like that...why isn't there more outrage from Democrats when President Obama ignores Congress and the SCOTUS?